M. Night Shyamalan strikes back with ‘Glass’
The ultimate M. Night Shyamalan twist was one no one saw coming.
After scoring a critical and commercial breakthrough with 1999’s Oscar-nominated “The Sixth Sense,” he’s had more than his share of ups and downs with critics and at the box office. But the roller-coaster ride is reaching a new peak with a cinematic universe two decades in the making.
His latest film, “Glass,” in theaters Friday, unites the lead characters of 2000’s “Unbreakable” and 2016’s “Split” for a compelling and sly exercise in creating a comic book-esque universe from scratch. And Mr. Shyamalan — breaking Hollywood rules by not working with preexisting properties and making films on his own terms — just might succeed where others have failed.
“Glass” is the conclusion to a trilogy that Mr. Shyamalan, cinema’s unorthodox auteur, has been orchestrating since “Unbreakable” — with a little help from the universe.
“So many things had to go right that had nothing to do with me,” he said from Philadelphia. “I’ve been fighting for so long to get things made in the right way. When I look back, there’s a sense of, ‘Wow — it was kind of meant to be.’”
A chance meeting with James McAvoy led to the actor starring in “Split” as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with dissociative identity disorder living with 23 “alters” known as the Horde. A “friendly agreement” with Disney exec Sean Bailey granted “Split” studio Universal permission to borrow Bruce Willis’ “Unbreakable” character for the surprise post-credits cameo that signaled that the films occupied the same narrative universe.
And then everyone had to be game to come back and tie the trilogy together in “Glass,” in which Mr. Willis fully reprises his role as everyman superhero David Dunn, now older, grizzlier and moonlighting as a vigilante hero known as the Overseer.
A kidnapping sends the Overseer on a collision course with the Horde, but “Glass” is purposefully named after Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass, the comic book collector with a rare genetic disease who spent “Unbreakable” trying to prove he was the supervillain to Dunn’s superhero.
For the past 16 years, “Glass” reveals, Price has been wheelchair-bound and under heavy sedation at the Raven Hill Memorial Psychiatric Research Hospital, where Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) seeks to treat all three men for the affliction she suspects they share: a clinical disorder in which delusional patients believe they have superpowers.
The linchpin to the series, Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of Mr. Glass has been years in the making. And so has his understanding of what Price has endured since the events of “Unbreakable.”
“I thought it important to show that his mind was even sharper, and his focus was more intense,” said the actor via email before “Glass’” London premiere. “He’s already been imprisoned by his body for his entire life. His incarceration has focused him that much more. When he learns about Crumb and his relationship with [Dunn], he sees the opportunity to achieve his greatest goal. He goes after setting it in motion with everything he’s got.”
“It had to be these studios,” Mr. Shyamalan said of Universal and Disney, who co-produced with the filmmaker’s Blinding Edge Pictures. “And it had to be these actors. There were a lot of ‘ifs’ on the table: Will they be available? Will they want to do this in the way I want to do this?”
Mr. Shyamalan had moved on to make original tales (2002’s “Signs,” 2004’s “The Village,” 2006’s “Lady in the Water” and 2008’s “The Happening”) but found diminishing returns swinging for blockbuster heights (2010’s “The Last Airbender” and 2013’s “After Earth” underwhelmed at the box office and were savaged by critics).
The $5 million-budgeted “The Visit” (2015) made independently with Blumhouse for a fraction of what his biggest films cost, returned Mr. Shyamalan to his roots — and greater creative control. It grossed $98 million worldwide.
Fans — and his own stars, added Mr. Shyamalan — had been asking about an “Unbreakable” sequel since the film opened.
“It was actually them always saying to me, ‘Let’s make the sequel, let’s make the sequel,’” Mr. Shyamalan said with a laugh. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah — I’m workin’ on it!’ I think they probably just kind of gave up on the idea that I was ever going to do it. Until I wrote ‘Split.’”
He had the idea for the “Split” cameo and called Mr. Willis, who “was 100 percent for it,” said Mr. Shyamalan. The actor filmed his scene in secret in a matter of hours. Mr. Shyamalan, meanwhile, kept the cameo footage out of early screenings of the film “just to be super safe — and to [let viewers] think of the movie as its own thing. It was a very healthy way to approach it.”
While making “Split,” he’d let Mr. McAvoy and co-star Anya Taylor-Joy in on his plans, giving them an inkling of the cinematic worlds they’d be bridging. But Mr. Jackson had no clue that Mr. Willis’ Dunn was back in action or what that might mean for their long-ago plans. Mr. Shyamalan broke the news with a cryptic message.
“Night surprised me with the idea of ‘Glass,’” recalled Mr. Jackson. “He told me to see ‘Split’ and to give him a call. So I watched ‘Split’ and had no idea until the scene with Bruce at the end. When he mentioned Mr. Glass, I knew that we were finally going to do a sequel and that these films were in the same universe.”
“He came out and said, ‘What does this mean?’” Mr. Shyamalan said with a laugh. “It means we’re making the sequel!”
Meanwhile, across the Shyamalanverse …
Sarah Paulson had just flown to New York with her freshly acquired 2017 Golden Globe for “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson” in her carryon luggage when a friend suggested they
check out the new Shyamalan film.
“I’m a huge fan of his movies, and I always have been,” said Ms. Paulson, en route to to meet up with her “Glass” costars for the European press tour. “I saw ‘Signs’ at the Grove in Los Angeles with Amanda Peet, who wouldn’t let me leave her house after because she was so afraid there was going to be some weird alien in the bathroom!”
“Nothing in his movies is happenstance,” she added. “Everything is really purposeful, and that’s extraordinary.”
Adding another special undercurrent to “Glass” are the family members whose relationships to the central trio are key to understanding them as people, not just superpowered heroes or villains. Mr. Shyamalan tapped Spencer Treat Clark, who was 6 when he appeared in “Unbreakable,” to reprise his role as Dunn’s now-25-year-old son, Joseph. Charlayne Woodard returns as Elijah’s caring mother, Mrs. Price.
Mr. Shyamalan compares “Glass” to “The Sopranos.” “To see what [Tony Soprano’s] home life is like, going to therapy, his teenagers not listening to him, is amazing. Yeah, during the day he kills people. But he’s just a dude struggling,” he said. “For me, telling a comic book story about comic book characters and their struggles and seeing what their home life is like, essentially, ‘What are their hearts like when they’re at home?’ They’re just like us. It just so happens that they’re superheroes.”
Might more films in the “Unbreakable” universe be in the cards if “Glass” connects with audiences?
“I highly doubt you will ever see another sequel from me. But I don’t want to be an idiot and say ‘never,’ because tomorrow you’ll read that I’m doing ‘Star Wars 10’ and go, ‘He lied!’” he said, laughing.