M. Night Shyamalan’s $247M Superhero Movie Finds New Success On Netflix Global Chart

Summary

• M. Night Shyamalan’s
  Unbreakable
  trilogy culminates with a twisty and unconventional superhero saga.
• Starring Bruce Willis and James McAvoy, Shyamalan’s superhero sequel becomes a Netflix hit, racking up 13.4 million hours viewed in the first week.
• Shyamalan has closed the door on another
  Unbreakable
  saga sequel, prioritizing original thrillers.

M. Night Shyamalan’s $247 million superhero film becomes a streaming hit, landing on the Netflix global top ten movies chart. Fresh off the blockbuster success of The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan in 2000 released the dark, unconventional superhero movie Unbreakable, starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson as super-powered adversaries. Though the film grossed a solid $248 million at the global box office, it would take Shyamalan until 2016 to revisit the world of Unbreakable, when he released the secret sequel Split, starring James McAvoy as a man with multiple personalities, one of which is superhuman.

Shyamalan’s Split follow-up Glass came shortly after in 2019, becoming a modest success at the box office with $247 million worldwide, and now the movie is a Netflix hit, landing at number 4 on the streamer’s global box office chart for the week of April 1 – 7, 2024. Netflix’s data says the film logged 13.4 million hours viewed on a total of 6.2 million views in its first week on the streamer.

Why Shyamalan Will Likely Never Make A Glass Sequel

Unbreakable could have remained a standalone movie, but Shyamalan surprised and delighted fans when his Split post-credits stinger revealed the connection between that movie and his 2000 film. Having rekindled the love for his Willis-Jackson pairing, Shyamalan had no choice but to finish off the Unbreakable trilogy with Glass, bringing back the original movies’ stars alongside McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy and Sarah Paulson.

Unbreakable
is available to watch on Max.

Glass put a twisty, very unconventional and somewhat divisive capper on the Unbreakable saga, and it’s unlikely there is more story to come. Shyamalan himself closed the door on a Glass sequel, telling Digital Spy back in 2018 that he isn’t interested in going back to that particular well again. He said:

“I don’t want to relive stuff and I don’t want to be an opportunist, that’s not the relationship that I have with the audience, that I aspire to. My aspiration is they know they’re going to get an original thriller every single time. That’s where my tastes go, so I’m going to say no right now.”

Shyamalan could always change his mind and dream up another chapter in the Unbreakable story. Unfortunately, the film would have to be made without Willis, who has retired from acting after heartbreakingly revealing that he is suffering from aphasia. Willis’ character may have seemingly died in Glass, but there might have been a way to bring him back, were Willis still able to star in a sequel. Since Willis no longer acts, there is even less reason for Shyamalan to return to the Unbreakable universe.

Source: Netflix