M. Night Shyamalan’s take on comic book superheroes is coming to an explosive head more than 18 years after he first kicked it off with “Unbreakable.”
At San Diego Comic-Con 2018, Shyamalan dropped a trailer for “Glass,” the third movie in what has become a superhero trilogy that started with “Unbreakable” and suddenly picked up steam again with last year’s “Split,” a movie nobody knew was related until its ending.
“Glass” finds the characters of “Unbreakable” — Mr. Glass, played by Samuel L. Jackson, and David Dunn, a nearly invulnerable man who goes on to become something of a superhero, played by Bruce Willis — coming together years later with James McAvoy’s character from “Split.” In that movie, McAvoy played a man with split personalities called Kevin Wendell Crumb, who becomes known as The Horde after a powerful, superpowered personality called the Beast seems to take him over.
All three are being studied by a psychiatrist (Sarah Paulson) who specializes in people who think they’re superheroes. But the trailer suggests that there will definitely be some superhero fighting eventually.
Universal has been teasing the release of the Comic-Con trailer for a week, dropping teasers focused on each of the three main characters, who find themselves incarcerated under the study of Paulson’s character. It doesn’t look like that’ll be the state of affairs for long, though, as Mr. Glass and the Horde team up to for evil.
Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” started with the premise that comic book characters could exist in real life, and that comics constitute modern-day myths. In that movie, Mr. Glass, who suffers from an affliction that gives him extremely brittle bones, goes looking for his opposite, a man who’s invulnerable. He discovers David after he’s the sole survivor of a train derailment, and goes on to slowly convince him that he’s actually something of a superhero. “Split” spent its time setting up a supervillain in The Horde, although not all of Crumb’s personalities are bad guys.
“Glass” is set to hit theaters on Jan. 18, 2019.
Watch the trailer above.