Samuel L. Jackson first learned of M. Night Shyamalan’s plans to write a follow-up to his movie Unbreakable when the director told him to watch his film Split.
The Pulp Fiction actor starred as Elijah Price/Mr. Glass, a mass murderer and comic book theorist with a disorder which means his bones break easily, alongside Bruce Willis in Shyamalan’s 2000 thriller Unbreakable. All three expressed interest in returning for a sequel which never seemed like it was on the cards until the director took an unused character from the Unbreakable script and created Split.
Jackson told WENN at the film’s London premiere on Wednesday night (09Jan19) that he first knew about the director’s plans when he told him to watch the 2016 movie.
“Night called and told me to watch Split and see what I thought,” he said. “I watched it and I called him and said, ‘What’s this all mean?’ He goes, ‘Well, it means that if this movie makes any money then we’ll make the third part of the film (trilogy).’ (I said), ‘OK, great.'”
Split starred James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with 23 different personalities. At the end of the film, Willis makes a brief appearance as David Dunn, who is seemingly invincible, revealing that the two films take place in the same universe. Shyamalan later confirmed his plans to bring the cast and characters from the two movies together to complete a trilogy.
While on the red carpet, Jackson also told reporters he had been bugging The Sixth Sense helmer about a sequel for 18 years and has different expectations when reading his scripts.
“Night’s a fascinating writer and I do have an expectation from him that’s different from the majority of writers that I read so I always expect it to be a page-turner and I expect not to know what’s gonna happen on page 105 from page 45,” the 70-year-old explained.
He also added that it was “fascinating” watching McAvoy play so many different characters but also “a little bit intimidating”.
Glass, also starring Sarah Paulson and Anya Taylor-Joy, hits cinemas from 16 January.
