M. Night Shyamalan Talks Original 3 Hour 'Glass' Cut & Pitching The Film To Universal And Disney

2019 is beginning with a hell of a bang, with the long-awaited film “Glass.” After “Split” surprised fans with its revelation that it takes place in the “Unbreakable” universe, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan started teasing that he had a trilogy-ending film planned already. And now, almost 20 years after “Unbreakable,” the stories of our grounded superheroes comes to its close. But according to the filmmaker, a lot of the story ended up on the cutting room floor.

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In a new interview with Digital Spy, Shyamalan talks about the process of editing “Glass,” and how he started with a long script, edited together a long film, and then had to cut it down to a more viewer-friendly size.

“The script was really long, it was almost 150 pages and the first 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 2.08 that you can see,” the filmmaker said.

Another interesting revelation about the film is how the filmmaker sold it to the two respective studios. You see, even though “Split” was made with Universal, to integrate it with the “Unbreakable” universe, a deal had to be struck with Disney, who released that film. So, Shyamalan had to pitch the idea to combine both franchises into one film, and he said it was actually quite simple.

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“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’,” Shyamalan said.

He continued, “‘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.”

And in honor of the film’s impending release in a month, another new trailer for the film has been unleashed, giving our best look yet at the plot for the superhero film. “Glass” hits theaters on January 18, 2019.