Split‘s Success Sees Shyamalan Once More Feeling Unbreakable

By Gill Pringle

“We’re going to hopefully do the final movie of this [series],” writer/director, M. Night Shyamalan, told FilmInk prior to the release of Split. “It’s Unbreakable, Split and then the final movie.”

As anyone who has seen Split (or anyone who trawls around the internet) will now know, Shyamalan’s latest movie actually exists in the same universe as his under-celebrated (and way ahead of its time) 2000 effort, Unbreakable. In that poetic and highly unusual redux on the concept of the superhero and comic book culture, Bruce Willis’ everyman, David Dunn, was revealed to boast Superman-like invincibility and indestructability, which came in handy when he butted heads with Samuel L. Jackson’s evil genius, Elijah Price, alias Mr. Glass.

Unbreakable, however, originally featured another villain, who was cut from the story during the development of the script. And that extra villain just happened to be a maniac with multiple personalities called Kevin, who Shyamalan of course repurposed as the villain of Split.

“This character was in the original Unbreakable script,” Shyamalan explains. “He was the third character in the Unbreakable script. It was Elijah, David Dunn and Kevin himself from Split. He was discarded from the eventual film, and now this is it!” But rather than just dusting off an old idea that still had legs, Shyamalan has used Split as a byway back into the Unbreakable universe, capping his film with a cameo from Bruce Willis. “We’re friends, yeah,” the director says of how he managed the cameo coup.

How does that work? Does Shyamalan go to Willis’ island in the Caribbean? Does the actor come and stay with the director? Do they Skype each other? “All of the above,” Shyamalan laughs. “We both have all girls, and we’re close! I guess there’s such a real bond there, because I was a kid when he basically gave me his imprimatur, and said that he’d be in The Sixth Sense. I was a kid, so that meant a lot! He’s always my big brother.”

With Split now a bona fide smash on a small budget, Shyamalan now looks set to make the third movie in his Unbreakable trilogy a reality. “I felt that Unbreakable was very special,” the director says. “Whether it was going to be accepted or not, I didn’t know. Now, David Dunn and Kevin will have to meet.”

Split is in cinemas now. Click through for our full interview with M. Night Shyamalan.