Shyamalan Talks “Glass” Length, Accessibility
The first big film of next year is M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass,” the long-awaited “Unbreakable” sequel that also serves as a follow-up to last year’s hit “Split”.
Speaking with
Digital Spy this week, Shyamalan talks about the process of editing “Glass” and indicated he started out with a rather long script and then cut it down to a more reasonable size in editing:
“The script was really long, it was almost 150 pages and the first cut [assembly cut] of the movie was 3 hours and 20 minutes, it was really long. Then it started tightening [and] tightening until we got to the 2hrs 8mins that you can see.”
Shyamalan also spoke about how he convinced Universal and Disney to come to a deal to combine the franchises into one film, and it turns out it was relatively painless as he promised to make it accessible for those who haven’t seen the previous films – no recap needed:
“I said to Disney and Universal, ‘Pretend there’s no previous movies and I came to you and I said that I want to make a movie about a hospital that treats people who believe they’re superheroes and three of their patients escape’. I want to make you that movie, will you make that movie? Oh and by the way, it stars Bruce Willis, Sam Jackson, James McAvoy and Sarah Paulson. Will you make that movie?’ Yes, you’ll make that movie… Person XYZ who hasn’t seen the other two will come to see that.”
“Glass” opens in cinemas on January 18th.