The Philadelphia-based director collides two of his most formidable films to create a sequel featuring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy and new entrant Sarah Paulson.
Leave it to M. Night Shyamalan to take two iconic films and make a sequel out of it that looks even more exciting than its predecessors.
That is exactly the case with the upcoming film Glass, in which James McAvoy, who starred in 2017’s surprise-hit Split and Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, both of whom starred in the 2000 film Unbreakable, come together as their original characters from the respective films. Collectively it makes the kind of cinematic curiosity Shyamalan became known for when he first made a huge mark with Sixth Sense.
When the announcement for the film was first made, said Shyamalan: “It was always my dream to have both films collide in this third film.”
It is palpable from the trailers where the three are being analyzed by Sarah Paulson’s Dr. Ellie Staple, a psychiatrist who “focuses on patients with the delusion that they have super powers”.
As for what happens in the film, to quote the synopsis: “Elijah Price / Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) finds David Dunn (Bruce Willis) pursuing Kevin Wendell Crumb’s (James McAvoy) superhuman figure of The Beast in a series of escalating encounters, while the shadowy presence of Elijah Price emerges as an orchestrator who holds secrets critical to both men.”
At one point, as Jackson says in the trailer: “A lot of people are going to die” as a consequence of the interactions of these particular three men.
Shot in Philadelphia, the three men are under the care of Paulson’s psychiatrist when Elijah Wood aka Mr Glass tells MvAvoy’s The Beast in the trailer: “I need your abilities to get us all out of here and show the world we exist.”
What follows is a universe of villains? We don’t know but don’t expect this to be a black and white good versus evil superhero film. But codenames for them have been unveiled with Willis being The Overseer, Jackson as The Mastermind and James McAvoy as The Beast.
From the looks of the trailers and the way the film has been presented in trailers at least, it seems the Shyamalan filmmaking magic is on the mend.
Glass is scheduled to release on January 18, 2019.
