Two-time Academy Award nominee M. Night Shyamalan took the stage at CinemaCon earlier today alongside Bruce Willis, James McAvoy, Sarah Paulson and Samuel L. Jackson to debut the first trailer for Glass. The follow-up film to Unbreakable and Split, Glass is said to focus on Jackson’s character from the former, Mr. Glass.
Unbreakable, is, without question, amongst the best in Shyamalan’s filmography. The 2000 deconstruction of the superhero genre orbits David Dunn (Willis), who comes to the realization that he’s been endowed with exceptional abilities after emerging, unscathed, from a train accident.
Split, meanwhile, Shyamalan’s sequel to Unbreakable, sees a mentally disturbed man with 23 different personalities abduct and imprison three teenage girls in an underground facility while he undergoes a bizarre transformation into a “merciless and cannibalistic sociopath with superhuman abilities.”
According to THR, the footage released at the National Association of Theatre Owners event today opened with Sarah Paulson’s character, psychiatrist Dr. Ellie Staple, saying “I specialize in those individuals who believe they are superheroes.” Sitting across from Paulson in the scene are Jackson’s Mr. Glass, Willis’ David Dunn, and James McAvoy’s Patricia.
Throughout the rest of the trailer, Shyamalan’s superhuman trio are seen in “various vignettes climbing on ceilings, bending iron poles and beating up bad guys,” while Glass concludes the preview by stating, “I have been waiting for the world to see that we exist.”
From what we understand, not a whole lot was shown, but the reception to the small amount of footage the crowd got was pretty positive and the director told those in attendance to expect the “first really grounded superhero film,” before adding “finally the thriller genre and the comic book genre have come together.”
Glass is a passion project for Shyamalan that first came to fruition when his Blumhouse-backed Split hauled in a monstrous $278.5 million on a $9 million budget. Anya Taylor-Joy, who co-starred alongside James McAvoy in Split, will reprise her role as Casey Cooke in the film and the Universal Pictures and Buena Vista International release is scheduled to hit theaters on January 18th, 2019.
