THE SHARD WAY
M. Night Shyamalan returns with Glass, his Unbreakable/Split crossover sequel… Words Paul Bradshaw
It’s the ultimate M. Night Shyamalan twist: if the studio doesn’t want to finance a sequel to one of your old films, you make a new one that’s secretly a sequel anyway. When the Bruce Willis cameo in Split renewed everyone’s interest in Unbreakable, Shyamalan got the green light to finish fleshing out the shared universe that no one really realised they were already watching – with
Glass now set to be the final part of his ‘Eastrail 177 Trilogy’.
“It was always a thought in my head,” says Shyamalan, who led a panel at Comic-Con alongside most of his cast. “I always wanted to make three movies and I always wanted the third one to be about Mr. Glass. Split was actually part of the original Unbreakable script, and I pulled it out because it was making it bulky and unbalanced. In fact, the very first outline I wrote for Unbreakable was what all three movies essentially ended up becoming.”
Picking up both original stories where they left off, Glass sees James McAvoy’s personality-and-shapeshifting brute, Kevin Crumb, and Willis’ indestructible sad sack, David Dunn, clash with Mr. Glass – Samuel L. Jackson’s brittle-boned supervillain. “I love the complexity of the character,” says Jackson, in an uncharacteristic whisper. “Also he’s really quiet. I don’t actually play the same motherfucker all the time! I like the loud ones, but I also like the quiet ones!”
McAvoy wasn’t on the panel (and a taciturn Willis didn’t contribute much), but Split’s Anya Taylor-Joy and series newbie Sarah Paulson were there to introduce a trailer that looked like a heftier, more explosive episode of Legion – with Dunn, Crumb and Glass all causing superhuman chaos in the psychiatric hospital they’ve obviously been confined to. Stealing the show is McAvoy’s DID-afflicted serial killer – doubling down on Split’s tour de force to up the amount of characters he can play in a single scene.
“I get asked a lot of questions about what makes these films feel different from a lot of the other superhero movies around,” says Shyamalan. “And I honestly think it’s all in the performances. The whole thing was just incredibly lucky – getting everyone to sign on, shooting things the old-fashioned way, making a sequel from two separate IPs and getting two different studios to agree to share it… it could probably never happen like this again.”
director m. night shyamalan starring samuel l. jackson, bruce willis, JAMES mcavoy eta 18 january 2019