M. Night Shyamalan is set to bring his own particular brand of murder, mystery, and mayhem to television when Wayward Pines premieres on May 14 at 9 PM on FOX. Executive produced and directed by Shyamalan, the 10-episode series stars Matt Dillion as a Secret Service agent who finds himself - seemingly - trapped in a eerie and dangerous remote Idaho town where two Federal agents before him disappeared.

We had the opportunity with Shyamalan about the draw of television, and the one stipulation he had to board the project - they can't have been dead all along.

“ If the answer is, everyone's having a surreal experience because they've all passed away or something, that's not interesting to me -- especially me doing it.

Matt Dillon and Juliette Lewis in Wayward Pines.

“ With Unbreakable, I feel like in retrospect I maybe should have made two movies right away. Because it's almost like you get to the interesting premise and then you leave.

Yeah, that's a story I'm not interested in telling. If the answer is, everyone's having a surreal experience because they've all passed away or something, that's not interesting to me -- especially me doing it. It's not for me.For me, it was what is the poignancy of ghosts? And treating it like a drama. It's poignant, this idea that the body dies but the spirit continues, what your consciousness is thinking. So those were the concepts I came with for The Sixth Sense. I felt like I explored that. But who knows? Maybe I'll be 60-years-old and be like, "I'm scared of dying now. I want to make another ghost thing!" I love that subject. You never know. For me it's so tattooed, the ghost theme in The Sixth Sense, I can't even go near that subject. I'd have to think of it in a different way. There's probably some other form of coming to it that will click for me.I am! There are really three forms I'm interested in. One is film, obviously. Two is TV, and three is theater. They continually move you closer to the audience. Film, we make the movie, and I'm already on another movie when you guys see it. I never get to see your reaction. I mean, you'll read box office numbers and see stuff. You'll hear people that come up to you and say, "I love your movie." But I'm not there. In TV, it's more one-to-one. They're in the middle of the performance, and you get to hear everyone's reaction. "I don't know why he did that! I can't believe that person got killed! What's that mean?" You're active, and you're like, "Wow, wait until you see the next episode." I'm really looking forward to that interest, of seeing everybody interacting. Hopefully, with Twitter and stuff like that, I can talk to everybody.I do. It's a rare opportunity for people to tweet me and say, "What the hell is that about?" And I'll be like, "Well... you might want remember he did this at the beginning of the episode," or, "watch out for that." It'll be fun!Yeah. It shouldn't be a gimmick. For example, Unbreakable. I feel like in retrospect I maybe should have made two movies right away. I should have made it as two movies. Because once we know the characters are comic book characters, that world, like separating it so wholly, it's almost like you get to the interesting premise and then you leave. I don't want to do that. Whereas with Sixth Sense that's a very organic end. Here, when you find out what it is, you'll know exactly what I'm saying. That's the really interesting moment. You want to live in it. So I get to do this incredible "What the hell is going on?" for four, five, six episodes, and then you get to live in that. It isn't just a gimmick. It would be like if our story was, we were dating and I told you I murdered somebody. That's not where that story ends; that's where it begins. Now you want to know how you're going to deal with the fact that the person you fell in love with is a murderer. Some reveals, that's where the story begins.Well, what happened was a really interesting process. He had written the first book, and then we started developing. I started writing and working with other writers. I'd throw out ideas and say, "How about this? How about that?" Then Blake [Crouch] started going, "Oh! I like that idea!" and he would put it in his book. So book two, three, they were meshing together our two different processes. I'd go, "What do you think about this?" and he'd say, "That doesn't interest me, going in that direction. I want to go in this direction," and I was like, "Oh, wow, that's cool. You go in that direction, I'll go in this direction." So it wasn't like there were three Lord of the Rings books and we're making them. This wasn't like that. This was a conceit that two creative groups were writing at the same time. I feel like our team could fit together and continue to think about it, but it would have to get to a critical mass for me. I wouldn't want to go forward unless we felt we really had something equally provocative to say and knew where we were going exactly, what the next step was. The first season had strength, you're held, because it knows its bones really well. It knows where it's going. If we don't have that -- I don't want to say yes and then figure it out; I want to figure it out and then say yes. That may end up with us never doing it, just like an Unbreakable sequel. [Laughs] But that's the way it has to be I think, for it to be proper -- at least for me to be involved.The Wayward Pines mystery begins to unfold on Thursday May14 at 9/8c on FOX.

Roth Cornet is an Entertainment Editor for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @RothCornet and IGN at Roth-IGN