If you still haven’t seen Universal’s box office hitSplitin theaters yet, there will be plenty of SPOILERS below, so read on at your own risk. Most fans weren’t surprised to learn thatSplitwas set and shot in directorM. Night Shyamalan’s hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but there is one shocking surprise that was revealed during a scene at the very end of the film. This is your last chance to avoid anySplitspoilers, so stop reading now if you haven’t seen this thriller quite yet.
The final moments ofSplitrevealedBruce Willisreprising his role as David Dunn fromUnbreakablein a diner scene where patrons are discussing a news report aboutJames McAvoy’s character Kevin Wendell Crumb, who the press have nicknamed “The Horde.” When one woman mentions that The Horde reminds her of another unique criminal, David Dunn says she’s thinking of Mr. Glass fromUnbreakable, a.k.a. Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson). During an appearance on theHappy Sad Confusedpodcast,M. Night Shyamalanreveals he had a much different sequence in mind for the end ofSplit, but it just didn’t work.
“There was another version of the credit sequence which was a comic book, which was graphic images of The Beast and then David Dunn and then Elijah and then them all mixing together. When I saw it done I was like, ‘This is a f—ing home run,’ and then when I put it on the movie it didn’t work. It’s one thing to say, ‘You saw an origin story,’ but to go into other characters…David Dunnis reacting to the news of The Horde. End of story. If you keep going it starts to undermine the movie you just saw.”
Last week, the filmmaker confirmed on social media that he has an 11-pageUnbreakable 2 outlinecompleted, while stating that he almost had several otherUnbreakableEaster Eggs inSplit, but he took them out because they began to “take over” the movie.James McAvoyhas also teased in interviews that he will be back as Kevin Wendell Crumb, withM. Night Shyamalanconfirming on this podcast thatSamuel L. Jacksonwill be back as Mr. Glass. Here’s what the director had to say aboutSamuel L. Jackson’s reaction to the news.
“I said, ‘You know I might be doing this movie and I might combine these two movies, I don’t know if you’re interested in playing Mr. Glass [again],’ he’s like ‘I’m dying to play Mr. Glass! I keep telling you every time I see you!'”
Samuel L. Jacksonisn’t the only one who has been clamoring for anUnbreakablesequel. Back in 2015, actorPatton Oswalteven reaching out toM. Night Shyamalanon Twitter in 2015, with his pitch for an Unbreakable sequel, with the filmmaker even responding to his pitch on social media shortly thereafter. The filmmaker still wouldn’t offer specifics about whatUnbreakable 2might entail, but he did talk about one story possibility, that may or may not make it into the script.
“My thought bubble would be, again don’t hold me to this, but Elijah never got out of the institution. He was just a guy who believed this, but David doesn’t quite 100% believe it that way, he just thinks that he is particularly meant to do this and is kind of faded a little bit. Like this idea of comic books that Elijah was saying the comic book world is based on reality, that it’s real, there’s no other evidence for this. It’s this crazy guy who has this bone disorder who’s in an insane asylum. But then this comes up and he’s like, ‘Oh my God, he’s right.'”
Unbreakablehit theaters in 2000, just a year afterM. Night Shyamalan’s breakout hitThe Sixth Sense, earning a solid $95 million domestically and $248.1 million worldwide, from a $75 million budget.Splithas certainly helpedM. Night Shyamalanrevive his career, which wasn’t in the greatest place just a few years ago, after a number of high-profile flops likeAfter EarthandThe Last Airbender. After just three weeks in theaters,Splithas earned $98.5 million domestically and $141.9 million worldwide from just a $9 million budget. Hopefully we’ll find out 2in the near future.
