Call Him Mister Glass

BY: Zak Wojnar

Once upon a time, M. Night Shyamalan was a hot young director with a promising career and a slew of hits under his belt. The horror/fantasy auteur made waves with critical and commercial darlings like The Sixth Sense and Signs, though his career eventually puttered out with duds like After Earth and The Last Airbender, a bizarrely whitewashed adaptation of the popular and progressive animated series.

Hollywood loves to shame a failure, but they also love a comeback story, and Shyamalan has definitely been on the upswing as of late, being one of the most high-profile directors to sign on with Blumhouse Productions, a studio which specializes in modestly-budged, director-driven films, usually in the horror genre. His first two films with the studio, The Visit and Split, had a combined budget of $14 million. Together, they raked in over $380 million worldwide. To call that a tidy profit would be an understatement.

Over his decades-long career, one of Shyamalan’s most memorable films is Unbreakable, a mystery thriller starring Bruce Willis as a man with extraordinary abilities. Although rooted in the real world, Unbreakable is actually a superhero story, with Willis’s character, David Dunn, having legitimate supernatural powers, and Samuel L. Jackson‘s character, the misanthropic Mr. Glass, is a genuine super villain. Although the film was practically begging for a sequel, it ultimately never came to pass, and Shyamalan became distracted with other projects…

…That is, until the final scene of Split. The James McAvoy thriller follows a heinous man with dozens of alternate personalities who kidnaps and murders girls. He is a monster, and downright evil. The film is a superbly crafted thriller, rife with incredible acting, claustrophobic tension, and an unsettling and oppressive atmosphere. As Split draws to a close, the film’s true twist is revealed: it is actually a sequel to Unbreakable, and Bruce Willis is back as David Dunn.

Indeed, a third film in the saga, Glass, is slated for release in January; while normally a dumping ground for failed blockbusters and creative misfires, Split proved to be a strong performer in the slot, and now Glass is looking to capitalize on, and improve upon, its success. The whole crew is back: Shyamalan is writing and directing, and the twenty year grudge match between Dunn and Glass is about to boil over; throw James McAvoy’s The Horde into the mix, as well as Sarah Paulson as an original character who likely hides secrets of her own, and we have a recipe for what could be the first big commercial and critical hit of 2019.

Unbreakable launched in 2000, just after the success of Bryan Singer’s X-Men, but long before the modern superhero blockbuster truly kicked into high gear with the 2002 release of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Sometimes, circumstances prevent events from playing out the way we planned. In another world, maybe M. Night Shyamalan would have been able to make sequels to Unbreakable immediately following the original film’s strong (but not astronomical) success. But then, if we did, the whole tale would have been finished years ago. There’s something special about the behind-the-scenes story of Unbreakable, Split, and Glass; movies that have a history, which nobody thought would ever actually get made, and which are the product – not of acute business acumen or contractual obligation – but of unbridled passion, love for the craft, and a dedication to telling the story.

People spent a long time laughing at M. Night Shyamalan, mostly because they didn’t have anything going on in their own lives and needed something to make themselves feel better about their own vapidity (that being said, After Earth is still a steaming pile of crap, but that’s not important right now!), but now it’s his turn, not to laugh, but to create and show that he’s the best there is at what he does.

Glass hits theaters on January 18, 2019.