Glass (2019 film)


Glass is a 2019 American psychological superhero thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who also produced with Jason Blum, Marc Bienstock, and Ashwin Rajan. The film is a crossover and sequel to Shyamalan's previous films Unbreakable and Split and the third and final installment in the Unbreakable trilogy a.k.a. Eastrail 177 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.
Despite interest in a sequel, Touchstone Pictures opted not to finance one. Shyamalan set out to write Split using a character he had written for Unbreakable but pulled from its script due to balance issues. Shyamalan realized the opportunity he had to create a trilogy of works, and used the ending of Split to establish the film as within the Unbreakable narrative. This included securing the rights to use Willis's Unbreakable character from Walt Disney Studios, with the promise of including Disney within the production and distribution of this third film alongside Universal Pictures. Split was a financial and critical success, and by April 2017, Shyamalan announced that he started the production process for Glass.
The film had its world premiere at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on January 12, 2019 and was released in the United States on January 18, 2019, by Universal Pictures. Glass received generally unfavorable reviews from critics, who found the film "disappointing" and "underwhelming". Nevertheless, the film was a financial success as it grossed $247 million worldwide against a $20 million production budget.

Plot

Three weeks after the "Horde" incident, David Dunn, a superhuman who survived the Eastrail 177 train wreck nineteen years ago, now operates as a vigilante dubbed the "Overseer" alongside his son Joseph. Together, they track down Kevin Wendell Crumb, the "Horde", at an abandoned factory where he holds four cheerleaders hostage. David engages Kevin in a brief battle until armed forces led by Dr. Ellie Staple intervene and imprison them at the Raven Hill Memorial Mental Institute. Also being kept there is David's "destined" foe and global terrorist Elijah Price, who is kept under sedation and is considered completely harmless.
David and Kevin are placed into separate rooms that contain unique security measures based on their specific weaknesses. Staple explains that she believes they suffer from delusions of grandeur and do not have superpowers. Elijah's mother Mrs. Price, Joseph Dunn, and Casey Cooke, a victim who survived Kevin/the Horde's captivity, try and fail to convince Staple superhumans are real. As part of her final evaluation, Staple brings the three men to a room where she challenges them with explanations of why their seemingly superhuman abilities are not extraordinary. Kevin and David become distraught while Elijah remains catatonic. That night, Elijah escapes his cell to conduct research on Kevin before visiting him and telling him he feigned his sedated state and plans to escape the institute but requires one of Kevin's personalities—the Beast—to help him. Staple discovers Elijah's escape plan and proceeds to do a prefrontal lobotomy to silence him.
Upon returning to his cell, Elijah reveals he sabotaged the surgical laser and kills his caretaker Daryl before freeing Kevin. Elijah then manipulates David into fighting the Beast by revealing his plan to destroy a chemical lab inside a new skyscraper in Philadelphia that would kill thousands. David breaks free from his cell and pursues The Beast. Mrs. Price, Joseph, and Casey arrive just as the trio escapes. David and the Beast fight for a while before Elijah reveals to The Beast David's weakness for water, after that Joseph reveals that Kevin's father died in the train wreck caused by Elijah Price nineteen years earlier. Despite thanking him for his creation, the Beast mortally wounds Elijah out of distrust, and throws David into a water storage tank that drenches the area when he gets out. Casey manages to bring Kevin's dormant original personality out, inadvertently allowing the police to fatally shoot him. Staple's men drown David in a flooded pothole while Staple reveals that she is part of a clandestine organization that has been suppressing the existence of superhumans for millennia to keep people from knowing about them and killing those with superhuman abilities as they see them as a threat to the balance of the world.
In the aftermath, Staple deletes the footage from the institution, only to realize Elijah had secretly live-streamed the events to a private network. Mrs. Price, Joseph, and Casey all receive a copy of the footage and upload it to the public, exposing the existence of superhumans to the world.

Cast

M. Night Shyamalan reprises his cameo role of Jai, the security guard from Dr. Fletcher's apartment building in Split, who recognizes and questions David Dunn if he worked at the football stadium, indicating that Jai is also the same stadium drug dealer from Unbreakable that David confronted. Additionally, Shannon Destiny Ryan, Diana Silvers, Nina Wisner, and Kyli Zion portrayed the cheerleaders at the start of the film whom one of Kevin's personalities kidnapped. Rosemary Howard and Bryan McElroy portray Kevin's parents, Penelope and Clarence, Howard reprising her role from Split.

Production

Development

After Unbreakable's release in 2000, rumors of possible sequels began circulating in different interviews and in film fansites. In 2000, Bruce Willis was quoted as hoping for an Unbreakable trilogy. In December 2000, M. Night 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, an idea Shyamalan said the studio originally declined because of the film's disappointing box office performance.
In September 2008, Shyamalan and Samuel L. Jackson's 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 that 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 continued to work on other films, releasing Split in 2017. Kevin Wendell Crumb, played by James McAvoy, is a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder, that affects his body chemistry to such an extent that he adopts the mannerisms of each separate persona. One of these personalities is "The Beast", which drives Crumb's body into a feral superhuman state, guided by the desire to consume those who have not had a traumatic situation in their lives – those it does not consider "broken". Crumb had initially been written into the script for Unbreakable, but Shyamalan felt there were balancing issues with his inclusion and removed him from the story. Split was effectively rewritten from some of the scenes he had planned for Crumb and expanded out into a standalone picture.
The final scene for Split includes the appearance of David Dunn, played by Willis. Shyamalan included Dunn there to connect Split to Unbreakable, by showing Dunn learning about the escape of "The Beast" and thereby realizing that other superhumans exist, as predicted by Mr. Glass. In 2017, Shyamalan stated although he hoped a third Unbreakable film would be made and 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."
Unbreakable had been produced for and owned by Touchstone Pictures, a label of Walt Disney Studios, while Split was produced through Universal Pictures. Shyamalan obtained permission from Disney to reuse the character of Dunn. 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 developed.
Split was met with critical and financial success and, in February 2017, Shyamalan affirmed his next film would be the third work in the trilogy. Shyamalan finished the script by April 2017, announcing that it 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 distributes the film internationally through its Buena Vista International label.

Casting

The cast includes returning actors from both films: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Spencer Treat Clark, and Charlayne Woodard from Unbreakable and James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy from Split, all reprise their respective roles, while Sarah Paulson plays a new character. In November 2017, Adam David Thompson joined the cast in a then undisclosed role.

Filming

As with Split and The Visit, Shyamalan funded the film himself. Principal photography began on October 2, 2017, in Philadelphia, following a week of rehearsals, with plans for a thirty-nine–day shoot. On October 31, 2017, it was reported that Shyamalan would be filming at Allentown State Hospital for a few weeks. On December 12, 2017, Shyamalan revealed that four scenes would be shot in January 2018, stating he would have to travel for their filming.

Post-production

Deleted footage from Unbreakable was used as flashbacks to Elijah and Joseph's childhood.

Music

returned to score the film after his collaboration with the director on Split. He used themes from the score of Unbreakable by James Newton Howard, alongside that of Split, in composing Glasss music. The score is distributed digitally by Back Lot Music.

Marketing

On April 25, 2018, the film was featured at CinemaCon, with Shyamalan in attendance. He presented footage from the film, along with the first official image, featuring Willis, Jackson, and McAvoy in character. He also expressed his intention for the film, saying, "The worlds of Unbreakable and Split finally collide in Glass. What if these real life superheroes and super-villains are somehow locked up together? What could go wrong?" Despite being preceded by hyper-realistic films about superheroes and villains, like The Dark Knight, Shyamalan personally considered Glass to be the "first truly grounded comic book movie".
On July 12, 2018, the first official photographs from production were released publicly, including shots of Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson, and James McAvoy. A week later, the film was promoted at San Diego Comic-Con, with Shyamalan, Willis, Jackson, Taylor-Joy, and Paulson attending a panel, where the film's first trailer premiered. The studio spent a total of $80 million promoting the film.

Release

Glass was theatrically released on January 18, 2019, in the United States and Canada by Universal Pictures and in international territories by Buena Vista International, a sub-division of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The first screening for Glass occurred on January 12, 2019, at 25 Alamo Drafthouse Cinema locations.

Home media

Glass was released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in the U.S., and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment internationally, under the Buena Vista Home Entertainment label, on digital on April 2, 2019, and on DVD, Blu-ray, and Ultra HD Blu-ray on April 16, 2019.

Reception

Box office

Glass grossed $111 million in the United States and Canada, and $135.9 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $247 million, against a production budget of $20 million. Deadline Hollywood calculated the film made a net profit of $68 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.
In the United States and Canada, Glass was projected to make $50–75 million from 3,841 theaters over its four-day MLK Day opening weekend. It made $16 million on its first day, including $3.7 million from Thursday night previews, and went on to gross $40.5 million in its opening weekend, and $46.5 million over the four days, marking the third-best total for Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and of Shyamalan's career. In its second weekend the film fell 53% to $19 million, albeit retaining the top spot at the box office. The film then finished first for a third straight weekend, grossing $9.5 million, before finally being dethroned in its fourth weekend, grossing $6.3 million and finishing fifth.
Internationally, the film was expected to gross $45–50 million in its first weekend, for a total of global opening of $105–120 million. It ended up making $48.5 million from international markets, with a global opening of $89.1 million. It finished first in most markets; its highest-grossing countries were Russia, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and South Korea.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 37% based on 377 reviews, with an average rating of 5.12/10. The website’s critical consensus reads: "Glass displays a few glimmers of M. Night Shyamalan at his twisty world-building best, but ultimately disappoints as the conclusion to the writer-director's long-gestating trilogy." On Metacritic, which assigns weighted average ratings to reviews, the film has a score of 43 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, down from Splits "B+" but up from Unbreakables "C", while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 70% and a "definite recommend" of 49%.
David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a "C−" and called it the biggest disappointment of Shyamalan's career: "The trouble with Glass isn't that its creator sees his own reflection at every turn, or that he goes so far out of his way to contort the film into a clear parable for the many stages of his turbulent career; the trouble with Glass is that its mildly intriguing meta-textual narrative is so much richer and more compelling than the asinine story that Shyamalan tells on its surface." Writing for Rolling Stone, David Fear gave the film three out of five stars "Glass is not the flaming flop some folks have already suggested it is, nor is it the movie you want in terms of tying ambitious, notions together about how we process our pulp mythos. In a world in which all movies are now either genocide or ice cream, it's a grand gesture characterized by a sense of ambivalence about what you've just seen – which may in and of itself be a sign of failure".
Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote: "It's good to see Shyamalan back in form, to the extent that he's recovered his basic mojo as a yarn spinner. But Glass occupies us without haunting us; it's more busy than it is stirring or exciting. Maybe that's because revisiting this material feels a touch opportunistic, and maybe it's because the deluge of comic-book movies that now threatens to engulf us on a daily basis has leeched what's left of the mystery out of comics." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "an underwhelming, half-baked, slightly sour, and even off-putting finale." Joshua Rivera of GQ magazine stated "The timeline is barely comprehensible, with twists so openly telegraphed they’d have saved the Titanic."
David Sims of The Atlantic compared the film to Batman Returns and Incredibles 2: "I appreciate the sheer brashness of Shyamalan's storytelling, which swirls the mythmaking inherent in characters such as David with the emotional scars borne by orphaned characters such as Superman." Praise was also reserved for McAvoy who "once again top notch" and "lit up the screen with his eerie physicality every time he appears."

Accolades

Future

M. Night Shyamalan has been asked numerous times if there would be any sequel for Glass. On January 8, 2019, he officially confirmed that no sequels are currently planned, adding that he has no interest building a cinematic universe.