M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable came to us in a very different era for superhero movies from the one that Glass will be arriving into this coming January. The first year of the 21st century was a pretty slow period for the genre, with DC still in a dry spell after 1997’s dreadfully received Batman & Robin and Steel. Fox, meanwhile, were only just getting started with their own major comic book franchise, with the first X-Men releasing mere months before the debut outing of David Dunn and Elijah Price.
Of course, the genre has since grown into a far more crowded market, so it’s probably for the best that the third and allegedly final installment in the Unbreakable series hasn’t been primed to compete with the next set of blockbusters from Marvel and DC, but rather to succeed on its own, smaller-scaled terms.
Speaking at last weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con, Shyamalan explained how Glass will be a very different sort of superhero movie from your average MCU outing.
“Yeah for me, over the years there has been so much love for that movie Unbreakable and the tones and the way we made it. Which is very grounded and treating people like they were real. We were making a drama, with world class performances.”
Continuing on, he said:
“So I did just approach it like that, that I was just making another thriller and it happens to be the subject of superheroes. So if I stay true to that, I think that combination is very intriguing. You know. I don’t have a ton of CGI in the movie and its very contained. It’s just leaning on the characters, leaning on these world class actors. Just leaning on them.”
This seems like the right approach if Shyamalan wants to honor the tone of his 2000 cult thriller. Unbreakable succeeded as a relatively downbeat and patiently paced drama that referenced the old comic book stories without ever truly aiming to copy them, so it would be a pretty jarring transition if the new movie attempted to make David, Elijah and Split’s Kevin Crumb into the new Avengers. Besides, we all know what Shyamalan’s like when he tries to make a blockbuster, and how many of us are really clamoring for another After Earth or The Last Airbender?
Glass will be offering us the director’s distinct take on the superhero genre when the film hits theaters on January 18th.