M. Night Shyamalan, who brought us the excellent Unbreakable and the awful The Happening could do no wrong ten years ago. Even while delivering films that polarised audiences he still generated a spectacular amount of buzz around each release, mainly due to audience desire to find out (or not) about the latest twist, something which has become a hinderance to his career.
With the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable he was on top of the world, The Village and Signs saw him under shakier ground as the films desperately slow pacing and questionable explanations drew increasingly more criticism both commerically and critically. After that the ground seemed to fall from beneath his feet and his last three films have come out to disastrous reviews from all sides, The Lady in the Water, The Happening and The Last Airbender shattered the last of his mystique.
Yet still his name is considered enough of a box draw to green light films with major stars. They themselves no doubt praying he hits a return to form on their film so they can ride inevitable press storm for all it's worth.
So we see Will Smith and son Jaden teaming up with Night for what Night describes as a sometimes scary, sci-fi movie set 1000 years into the future where a child and son must navigate their way across an abandoned earth after their ships crash lands on the planet.
From this basic premise i can only assume that earth is uninhabited and that a father is taking his sown there for some sort of interest trip when thing go wrong. And with the forced rise of Smith's son into stardom I wouldn't be surprised to see Smith snr being there in a supporting role and this being predominantly a kids film.