Glass (2019 film)
Glass is a 2019 American superhero thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It is a crossover and sequel to Shyamalan's previous films Unbreakable and Split and the third and final installment in the Unbreakable trilogy. Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Spencer Treat Clark, and Charlayne Woodard reprise their Unbreakable roles, while James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy return as their Split characters, with Sarah Paulson, Adam David Thompson, and Luke Kirby joining the cast. The film sees David Dunn / the Overseer as he and Kevin Wendell Crumb / the Horde are captured and placed in a psychiatric facility with Elijah Price / Mr. Glass, where they contemplate the authenticity of their superhuman powers.
After the Walt Disney Studios' Touchstone Pictures opted not to finance a sequel to Unbreakable, Shyamalan set out to write Split using a character he had written for Unbreakable but pulled from its script. He decided to create a trilogy of works, using the ending of Split to merge Glass with the Unbreakable narrative. To secure the rights to use Willis' and Jackson's Unbreakable characters, Shyamalan promised to include Disney in the film along with Universal Pictures. Split was a financial and critical success, and by April 2017 Shyamalan announced that he started the production process for Glass.
Glass had its world premiere in select Alamo Drafthouse Cinema theaters on January 12, 2019, and was released in the United States on January 18 by Universal Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who found the film "disappointing" and "underwhelming" due to the story, particularly the third act, but praised the performances of the cast; many deemed it the weakest in the trilogy. The film was a financial success, grossing $247 million worldwide against a $20 million production budget.
Plot
and his son Joseph track Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with multiple personalities called The Horde, to an abandoned factory near Philadelphia. Kevin is keeping four cheerleaders hostage to feed to The Beast, a superhuman personality that several of Kevin's personalities worship. David rescues the cheerleaders and has a brief confrontation with The Beast until they are both captured by Dr. Ellie Staple. They are taken to Raven Hill Memorial, where a sedated Elijah Price / Mr. Glass, a terrorist born with osteogenesis imperfecta, whom David previously fought over a decade ago, is being detained.David and Kevin are placed in separate rooms that contain unique security measures based on their weaknesses of water and light flashes, respectively. Ellie pushes upon them that they suffer from delusions of grandeur and do not have superpowers. Mrs. Price, Joseph, and Casey Cooke all try and fail to convince Ellie that superhumans are real. As part of her final evaluation, Ellie brings the three men to a room where she challenges them with explanations for their seemingly superhuman abilities that are not supernatural. David and several of Kevin's personalities become confused and distraught, while Elijah remains catatonic.
That night, Elijah escapes from his room and conducts research on The Overseer and Kevin. He visits Kevin and says he has been feigning his sedated state and plans to escape the institute, but he requires the help of The Beast to do so. The next morning, Ellie sees surveillance footage of Elijah outside his room and performs a prefrontal lobotomy-type procedure on him. When he is alone with his caretaker, Elijah kills the man, revealing the procedure was unsuccessful because he had sabotaged the surgical laser. He frees Kevin and then manipulates David into using his strength to break out of his room by relating a plan for The Beast to reveal himself to the world at the opening of the Osaka Tower, a new skyscraper in Philadelphia, while Elijah destroys a chemical lab in the building, potentially killing thousands.
Mrs. Price, Casey, and Joseph arrive at Raven Hill just as Elijah, Kevin, and David escape. Ellie, also witnessing the fight, calls an armed SWAT team to move in on the superhumans. David and The Beast fight in the Raven Hill parking lot, before Elijah tells The Beast that David's weakness is water, at which point Joseph reveals that Kevin's father died in the train wreck that Elijah caused. The Beast thanks Elijah for contributing to his creation by making it so that Kevin was raised solely by his abusive mother, before mortally wounding Elijah for manipulating the situation that led to Kevin's abuse. He throws David into a water storage tank, but David is able to break through the side, drenching the surrounding area. Casey manages to bring out Kevin's dormant original personality, at which point a sniper fatally shoots him, and Kevin dies in Casey's arms. While SWAT officers drown David in a flooded pothole, Ellie reveals she is part of a clandestine organization that due to fear has been suppressing the existence of superhumans for millennia by tracking and killing those with superhuman abilities.
In the aftermath, Ellie deletes the surveillance footage of the confrontation and makes plans to move on to investigate the next case of suspected superhumans. However, when she overhears a group of comic book readers discussing the tropes of a super-genius mastermind, she realizes Elijah must have had a secret plan and discovers he arranged for the Raven Hill surveillance footage of the fight to be live-streamed to a private website, leaving her and her organization defeated. Mrs. Price, Joseph, and Casey each receive a copy of the footage and release it to the public, exposing the existence of superhumans.
Cast
- James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb / the Horde: A 24-year-old former Philadelphia Zoo employee with 24 different personalities whose body chemistry changes with each personality, including a personality known as "The Beast"—a sadistic superhuman cannibal whose abilities include wall-crawling and enhanced strength, speed, durability, and agility.
- * Owen Vitullo portrays an 8-year-old Kevin.
- Bruce Willis as David Dunn / the Overseer: A superhuman vigilante with enhanced strength and durability, as well as the ability to see the crimes people have committed if he touches them. In the film, Dunn goes by a new alias, "the Overseer".
- * Colin Becker portrays a 10-year-old David.
- Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price / Mr. Glass: A genius wheelchair user, comic book theorist with Type I osteogenesis imperfecta, and mass murderer, who was institutionalized after Dunn discovered his crimes.
- * William Turner portrays a young Elijah
- * Johnny Hiram Jamison plays a 14-year-old Elijah.
- Sarah Paulson as Dr. Ellie Staple: A psychiatrist specializing in delusions of grandeur who treats patients convinced they are superhuman beings and attempts to prove Dunn, Price and Crumb are not superhumans.
- Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke: A 17-year-old girl with a history of abuse who was kidnapped by one of Kevin's identities as a potential sacrifice to "The Beast", but managed to survive. She is the only person capable of bringing forth Kevin's dormant original/"host" personality.
- Spencer Treat Clark as Joseph Dunn: David's son, who has believed in his father's abilities since he was a child and sees him as a real-life superhero.
- Charlayne Woodard as Mrs. Price: Elijah's mother, who took great care of her son and always told him he was special, no matter what others said.
- Luke Kirby as Pierce: One of Elijah's caretakers at Raven Hill.
- Adam David Thompson as Daryl: An employee at Raven Hill.
Production
Development
After the release of M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, rumors of possible sequels began circulating in different interviews and on film fansites. At the time, Bruce Willis, who played David Dunn / the Overseer, was quoted as saying he hoped there would be an Unbreakable trilogy, but, in December 2000, Shyamalan denied rumors he had written Unbreakable as the first installment of a trilogy. In August 2001, he stated that, because of successful DVD sales, he had approached Touchstone Pictures about an Unbreakable sequel, but the studio originally declined because of the film's disappointing box office performance.In September 2008, Shyamalan and star Samuel L. Jackson, who played Elijah Price / Mr. Glass, stated discussions about making a sequel had been largely abandoned in light of the disappointing box office returns. Jackson indicated he was still interested in a sequel, but Shyamalan remained noncommittal. In February 2010, Willis said Shyamalan was "still thinking about doing the fight movie between me and Sam" and stated that, as long as Jackson was able to participate, he would be "up for it".
Shyamalan worked on various unrelated films after Unbreakable before releasing Split, which introduces the split-personality character Kevin Wendell Crumb / the Horde, played by James McAvoy. Crumb had been included in the initial script of Unbreakable, but Shyamalan felt the character created balancing issues and removed him from the story. In the final scene of Split, Willis' Dunn is seen learning about the escape of The Horde and thereby realizing that other superhumans exist, as predicted by Jackson's Mr. Glass. Unbreakable was produced and owned by Touchstone Pictures, a label of the Walt Disney Studios, while Split was produced through Universal Pictures, so Shyamalan had to obtain permission from Disney to use the character of Dunn in Split. He met with Walt Disney Studios president Sean Bailey and came to a gentlemen's agreement, whereby Bailey agreed to allow the use of the character in the film without a fee, and Shyamalan promised that Disney would be involved in a sequel, if it was developed.
Split was met with critical and financial success. In January 2017, Shyamalan stated that, although he hoped a third Unbreakable film would be made and he already had an outline prepared, "I don't know what's going to happen when I go off in my room, a week after this film opens, to write the script." The next month, he affirmed his next film would be the third work in the trilogy. He finished the script by April, at which point he announced the new film would be called Glass and have a target release date of January 18, 2019. Universal was selected to distribute the film in the United States, while Disney distributed the film internationally through its Buena Vista International label.
Shyamalan has been asked numerous times if there will be a sequel to Glass. In January 2019, he officially confirmed that no sequels are currently planned, adding that he has no interest in building a cinematic universe.