SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Split. If you have yet to watch M. Night Shyamalan’s 2017 thriller, please exercise extreme caution.
One of the best M. Night Shyamalan movies, Split, hit the big screen in 2017 and quickly became a massive hit, both at the box office and with critics. In fact, we gave the tense psychological horror film 3.5 out of 5 stars in our official review upon its release. And while the main part of the film generated a lot of buzz with its performances from James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy, it was the Split ending, and that Bruce Willis cameo, that audiences couldn’t get enough of way back when.
Years later, the story behind the Split twist ending is still fascinating, especially when considering everything Shyamalan had to go through to make it happen. That said, we’ve put together the story behind the film’s big reveal, how the filmmaker pulled it off, and what’s been said since.
How They Got Bruce Willis On Board
The story of how Bruce Willis came to reprise his role as David Dunn in Split started long before the film opened in theaters and even before anyone outside of a small group knew that the movie would have any connection with Unbreakable. In a February 2017 conversation with the Wall Street Journal, M. Night Shyamalan revealed that conversations about Willis’ cameo started back in 2015 when he made a call to former Walt Disney Pictures President Sean Bailey and asked if he could reference the character in his then-upcoming movie (Unbreakable was released by Disney while Split was being handled by Universal).
Not only did Bailey grant the request, he didn’t charge the filmmaker a fee to do so. Instead, they came to an agreement in which any future sequels would be shared by the two studios. Years later, Glass, the third film in the franchise was distributed by Disney. Now Shyamalan just had to get Willis to sign off on the idea.
Split's Final Scene Wasn't Part Of The Original Script
As he wanted to keep Bruce Willis’ involvement a secret from pretty much everyone who didn’t need to know about it, M. Night Shyamalan didn’t include the Split twist ending in the original script. This meant that not even Universal Pictures knew about what the director was cooking up (more on that later). When speaking with CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast in July 2021, Shyamalan recalled the moment he finally decided to film Willis’ scene:
I said, ‘Let’s just go for it.’ Lemme call Bruce and say, ‘Hey dude, would you just come to Philly for, like, three hours and shoot this thing for me?’ And he was like, ‘Why, what?’ And I was like, ‘Well, I did this movie, and it’s kind of in the Unbreakable world. I don’t know if we’ll ever shoot (a sequel). Do you just want to just come for three hours, bro?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll come.’
One phone call later, Shyamalan was one step closer to making not just one of the best horror films of 2017, but an all-time great twist ending audiences still can’t get enough of.
M. Night Shyamalan Hid Split's Big Reveal From Universal Studios Until The Very Last Second
The brass at Universal Studios didn’t know about the Split twist ending until the very last second because M. Night Shyamalan never included the scene in the drafts or early test screenings. In the same ReelBlend podcast interview mentioned above, the director revealed that Universal was “completely flummoxed” when he did finally show them the scene, stating:
I go to the Universal Studios chairman, (the) marketing team, everyone’s in the theater. We pull down the lights and we play them Split. They don’t know the ending that they’re watching. They didn’t even know I shot it, because I didn’t even send them the dallies of that (scene). The lights go down. They watch the whole movie of Split. Then this scene comes on, and they’re completely flummoxed. They look at me, and they’re like, ‘What are you saying? That’s a Disney movie!’ (Laughs) And I go, ‘It’s all good. We have the permission to do it!’ Can you imagine? You are the chairman of the studio, and the guy shows you that it’s a sequel to a movie from another studio?
Remember, Universal not only had no idea the scene existed, the studio didn’t know anything about the conversations Shyamalan had with Disney in which Sean Bailey agreed to let him use the Unbreakable character.
The Horde Was Originally Supposed To Be In Unbreakable
Oddly enough, the connection shared by Split and Unbreakable goes back further than the 2017 horror film. Shyamalan was building a shared universe way back when he was making the 1999 movie starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson before making changes the script. When speaking with Vulture in 2019, the director revealed that “The Horde,” the nickname for James McAvoy’s various personalities, was supposed to bump into David Dunn more than a decade-and-a-half earlier, before they crossed paths in Glass.
The decision was ultimately made to remove that aspect from the Unbreakable script and focus on it much later on because it was going to get in the way of the character development he wanted to do with the movie’s characters.
M. Night Shyamalan Originally Had Easter Eggs Teasing The Unbreakable Connection In Split But Decided To Take Them Out
David Dunn wasn’t originally going to be the only connection to Unbreakable found in Split, as Shyamalan originally toyed with the idea of including all kinds of Easter eggs teasing a shared universe before ultimately deciding to drop that aspect from the script. In a January 2017 conversation with Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, the director explained that he was going to have references to battles between Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) and David Dunn, but he ultimately decided that it was going to be too much of a distraction from the story he was trying to tell.
Though a scene showing the aftermath of one of those battles was filmed, the director said there was a lot of confusion surrounding it, so he kept it out.
Despite Several Clues In The Script, James McAvoy Didn't Know Split Was Intended As An Unbreakable Sequel
Not only did Universal Studios not know that Split was being treated as a stealth sequel to Unbreakable, but the film’s star, James McAvoy, was also in the dark. In a January 2019 interview with Digital Spy, the actor revealed that despite there being slight hints at a shared universe in the script, he never picked up on them while preparing to play Kevin Wendell Crumb (and the various other personalities).
It wasn’t until much later that McAvoy began to piece together the pieces of the puzzle, even after Shyamalan kept dropping further hints on the set by mentioning characters from Unbreakable. After finally figuring it out, McAvoy approached the director and “came clean with him” about his confusion.
Anya Taylor-Joy Didn't Know Anything About The Bruce Willis Cameo Until Shyamalan Told Her After A Screening
McAvoy wasn’t alone in not knowing Split was a part of something much bigger, as Anya Taylor-Joy didn’t know about the Bruce Willis scene until she attended a teaser screening with Shyamalan prior to the film’s release. In a January 2018 interview with EW (via Yahoo! Entertainment), the actress revealed that while the final scene wasn’t in the screening she attended, the director pulled her aside before it started and filled her in on the movie being a sequel to Unbreakable. Not only that, Shyamalan informed her there were plans for a third film, Glass, and she was going to be involved.
M. Night Shyamalan Ultimately Decided To Keep The Split Ending A Secret From Audiences And Instead Let Word Of Mouth Promote The Film
After letting the actors and studio executives know he was about to expand the Unbreakable universe, M. Night Shyamalan had to figure out how to approach the situation with audiences. In a January 2017 interview with CinemaBlend, the filmmaker explained his thought process in not promoting the twist, stating:
I remember pitching it in my office, like, 'What if we made a movie, but you didn't realize that what you were watching until the end, that you were watching the sequel, but you didn't know.'
When Shyamalan was asked by his team why a studio wouldn’t promote a movie as a sequel, he simply said “we’ll let word of mouth do that.” The gamble ultimately worked, as Split would go on to make $278 million worldwide, per BoxOffice Mojo.
Samuel L. Jackson Didn’t Know Split Was A Sequel Until He Saw It Himself
Though Bruce Willis was in the loop about Split being a sequel to Unbreakable, his co-star, Samuel L. Jackson, Mr. Glass himself, didn’t know anything about it until he saw the movie. When speaking with Vulture in 2018, the MCU star recalled the moment Shyamalan called him and told him to go see the movie without letting him know what was going on. Soon after, he met with the director and found out that a sequel would happen if Split was a box-office success. It was a major hit, and Glass was on the way to becoming a reality.
Producer Jason Blum Has Attributed The Film's Small Budget For Being Able To Keep The Ending Secret
So, how were M. Night Shyamalan and Blumhouse Productions able to keep the Split twist ending a surprise for everyone? Well, when speaking with CinemaBlend back in 2017, Jason Blum chalked it up to the film’s relatively small budget ($9 million) and how it allowed them to make Split a standalone movie without saying it was going to be a part of something bigger.
The horror producer explained that if it had been a $50 million movie, there would have been no way the secret could have been kept as long. Everyone from Universal essentially left the production team alone, which allowed them to create one of the most unforgettable movie moments of the 2010s.
Obviously, Shyamalan’s grand plan worked, the Split twist ending was a major hit, and the legendary filmmaker gave audiences one of the best horror movies of all time in the process.
