Shyamalan talks Glass 3-hour cut & sequel

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's simultaneous sequel to UNBREAKABLE and SPLIT will be upon us this January starring Bruce Willis, James McAvoy, and Mr. Glass himself Samuel L. Jackson. The film runs a (relatively) quick 2 hours and 8 minutes, but this wasn't always the case as Shyamalan recently spoke to Digital Spy about his original cut – which, get this shite – ran a ridiculous 3 hours and 20 mins.

Shyamalan on GLASS three-hour cut:

The script was really long, it was almost 150 pages and the first cut of the movie was 3 hours and 20 minutes, it was really long. Then it started tightening [and] tightening until we got to the 2.08 that you can see.

So just how in the hell did the writer-director manage to cut out over an hour and 15 minutes from his new film? Well, it turns out that he had originally scripted many more set-ups for the UNBREAKABLE and SPLIT characters we already know and love – and obviously he realized in the editing room that we the moving-going public were in no such need of these reintroductions. Specifically, Shyamalan cites a sequence with McAvoy's Patricia.

He explains:

All she needs to go is, 'My name is Patricia' and you're there. That's a much longer scene in the screenplay where you're reliving the humour and the relationship and the connection to the girls and even realising she has multiple personalities.

Right on. All of this works for me. But hell, if this new film is anywhere as good as the original UNBREAKABLE, I'd totally be down for checking out the 3 hours and 20 minutes cut on Blu-ray. Sure that's as long as the third entry in Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS flicks, but all the same, in the day and age of TV and devoting hours upon hours to show after show, I'm sure my hyper-ass could sit still in enough increments to enjoy an epic version of GLASS.

And since we're here, does Shyamalan think there will ever bee a GLASS 2? Nope.

Shyamalan on GLASS 2:

I don't want to relive stuff and I don't want to be an opportunist, that's not the relationship that I have with the audience, that I aspire to. My aspiration is they know they're going to get an original thriller every single time. That's where my tastes go, so I'm going to say no [to another movie] right now.

We'll see if Shyamalan is telling the truth or not in the future, I guess. And I hate to be that guy but all his talk of "original thrillers" is kind of bupkis as GLASS in itself is a sequel. But whatever, let's just agree to not tell Shyamalan that. Something tells me he would disagree.

Returning with Willis and Jackson from UNBREAKABLE is Spencer Treat Clark as Dunn's son and Charlayne Woodard as Price's mother. Back with McAvoy from SPLIT is Anya Taylor-Joy (THE WITCH). Sarah Paulson (AMERICAN HORROR STORY) joins the cast this time around as well. And if you're looking forward to witnessing all the UN-SPLIT-ABLE mayhem this January, then you might be interested to know that the film has scored a PG-13 rating via the powers that be over at the MPAA for "violence including some bloody images, thematic elements, and language."

Here's the official synopsis: 

M. Night Shyamalan brings together the narratives of two of his standout originals—2000’s Unbreakable, from Touchstone, and 2016’s Split, from Universal—in one explosive, all-new comic-book thriller: Glass. From Unbreakable, Bruce Willis returns as David Dunn as does Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price, known also by his pseudonym Mr. Glass. Joining from Split are James McAvoy, reprising his role as Kevin Wendell Crumb and the multiple identities who reside within, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke, the only captive to survive an encounter with The Beast. Following the conclusion of Split, Glass finds Dunn pursuing Crumb’s superhuman figure of The Beast in a series of escalating encounters, while the shadowy presence of Price emerges as an orchestrator who holds secrets critical to both men.

Shyamalan produced GLASS with Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, Ashwin Rajan, and Marc Bienstock. Steven Schneider, Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, and Kevin Frakes served as executive producers. GLASS is scheduled to twist and turn its way into theatres on January 18, 2019.