Bacon tells Entertainment Weekly doing so wouldn’t have hurt The Sixth Sense, that film was destined for success, but his little movie could have been helped by it.
However, the studio didn’t believe that The Sixth Sense was going to be the hit that ended up becoming.
Kevin Bacon and director David Koepp apparently got a hold of the script for The Sixth Sense shortly after shooting had wrapped on Stir of Echoes and, realizing the similarities between the plots, they approached the studio and actually lobbied to have their release date moved up.