What the Title of Shyamalan’s ‘Unbreakable/Split’ Sequel Tells Us

Drew Dietsch
Movies
Movies

Fans have been super excited since Split hit theaters earlier this year. Why? Well, SPOILER ALERT… It’s the worst kept spoiler at this point, so sorry if you didn’t know. It turns out that Split takes place in the same universe as Unbreakable. And fans have been dying to know if this meant we’d get another film that connected the two movies in an even deeper way. Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan confirmed that he has been writing a follow-up, but there was little else to go on.

Now we know that this project will be the next film he concentrates on. It makes sense considering Split did massive numbers at the box office. The need to capitalize on a sequel is immediate. But what was really revealing was the title of the sequel. Shyamalan announced that the third film in this series would be titled Glass.

“They called me Mr. Glass.”

unbreakable mr. glass samuel l. jackson

Unbreakable fans know that this must be a reference to Elijah Price, Samuel L. Jackson’s character from the first film. Born with a disease that makes his bones easy to break, childhood bullies dubbed him Mr. Glass. This became his unofficial supervillain name by the end of Unbreakable, and he was locked away in a criminal institution for several terrorist attacks he carried out in order to help reveal someone with superhuman invulnerability.

Glass sounds like it could bring the focus back to Elijah. The likely scenario is that he will be put into a Hannibal Lecter type role, helping David Dunn track down the Horde from behind bars. Elijah was never a villain doing things for evil reasons. He wants the world to recognize these superhuman beings that are appearing. From his perspective, he would want to assist David in defeating the Horde because that’s what’s supposed to happen in a comic book story.

Centering a story around Elijah could be interesting. Although, we did learn a lot of his backstory in Unbreakable. There would have to be some good forward momentum to his story other than his imprisonment. Has he been released since the events of Unbreakable? What does he think about the appearance of a “villain” as opposed to a “hero” like David? Does Mr. Glass need to stay a villain or can he be redeemed? These are all questions Glass should be thinking about, and we’re excited to hear the answers.

Glass will hit theaters on January 18, 2019.

Drew Dietsch
Drew Dietsch has been professionally writing about entertainment for over a decade. His bylines include FANDOM - where he was a founding contributor and Entertainment Editor - Bloody Disgusting, SYFY WIRE, and more. He created and hosts GenreVision, a weekly film discussion show at genrevision.com.