M. Night Shyamalan is known for making original movies. He's only ever directed one film based on an existing property and each of his other movies tells a unique story. This made the twist in Split, that it takes place in the same universe as Unbreakable, all the more surprising, and while Glass will continue both stories, the director says he won't be making another sequel. According to Shyamalan...
That's not interesting to me. There's no danger in that. Or not enough danger, let's say that...For me, my weapon isn't matching pyrotechnics against pyrotechnics. I'm just not good at it! I just can't --- Avengers and movies like that --- I mean, I don't even know how they do these things.
Sequels are popular with Hollywood exactly because they're safe. The story has a built-in audience and so if the previous film was a success, there's a stronger chance the follow-up will be as well. However, M. Night Shyamalan tells Vulture that he has little interest in sequels exactly because they're safe. He says he prefers to take risks and make movies that have "danger."
Of course, for M. Night Shyamalan the danger has been both a blessing and a curse. His first movies, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were huge hits because they were interesting and creative ideas that nobody had seen before. However, not all of his ideas have been as well received, resulting in films like The Lady in the Water and The Happening being as harshly panned as the previous films were embraced.
However, Shyamalan found himself with another hit recently with his last movie Split, which, as we learned in the final scene, was related to one of those earlier successes, Unbreakable. The movie was such a hit that interest in another follow-up was high, leading to M. Night Shyamalan writing and directing the movie that acts as a direct sequel to both, Glass.
However, regardless of what happens with Glass at the box office, don't expect another sequel to follow this one. In fact, don't expect to see M. Night Shyamalan try to make sequels to any of his films, and he seems pretty uninterested in that.
We're not doing that though. I have the sequel rights to most of my movies, essentially for the reason to not do them.
It's certainly one way to keep control of your creative endeavors, make sure you have the rights to movie sequels in order to be sure they never get made.
Of course, while M. Night Shyamalan says he's not planning on building the "Unbreakable Cinematic Universe" he also admits that the world could continue on from the events of Glass, so who knows? Maybe we'll get a stealth sequel again one day as we did with Split, maybe the writer will decide there's another story to be told in one of his other films.
Glass hits theaters Friday.
