Glass ends with the movie's three leads being killed off by a mysterious organisation who have spent the past 10,000 years taking out superpowered individuals before they're able to fully embrace their abilities and create a world like those we see in comic books. It was a shocking twist and the apparent cause of the absolutely fantastic movie's negative reviews.
In a new interview, director M. Night Shyamalan has weighed in on the big twist and confirms that it was always the ending he had in mind when he was shooting Unbreakable 19 years ago.
"I did. I didn't know if I could have the balls to do it. But I did. That was in my head and I kind of said, "Maybe we could do this at the end" and chuckled about it. Can you do that? I didn't know whether I'd have the fortitude to keep going and do it, but I'm so glad that I did. Closure is important to me, as a narrator, as a storyteller. How do we get to a definitive end so that you understood someone had something to say specifically and not then continuing. It's always been on my mind how to do this. Obviously, I've never done a sequel before and wanting to make sure it was from the right motivations, from the characters themselves and that world and keeping a certain level of purity about it. I think that the shelf life of the three movies will increase dramatically because of it."
As mentioned above, a lot of reviewers seemingly couldn't see past the movie's ending to judge Glass on its other merits and when Shyamalan was asked about how audiences at test screenings reaction, you may be surprised by what the filmmaker had to say.
"The test screenings were really crazy. We did do them and they were crazy because audiences just went with us. They just were not polarized in any way by anything that we just mentioned.… It was one of my highest testing movies ever. This thing we are talking about [the ending] was refreshing to them. That we were doing the opposite of everything. It was really contained and it was unusual and thought-provoking."
Finally, talk turned to the ever-growing divide between audiences and critics and while the director wasn't willing to comment on the reviews for the movie he sank $20 million of his own money into, he made it clear that he simply wants to create stories that audiences intheaters will enjoy.
"Definitely don't want to comment on that [the reviews]," he said. "That's not my purview. The less energy spent in that arena the better. All of it should go toward making the highest quality audience movies that I can possibly make. Really pushing cinema to tell accessible stories. That's the balancing act I'm trying to study and learn over the years."
Glass scored a solid $89 million in North America this weekend and all the signs are pointing to it being a hit (Disney is already touting its huge opening in the UK). While the ending will no doubt be talked about for years to come, an argument could be made that it was a much better conclusion than many fans had hoped for. What do you guys think?
For a recap of what we thought did and didn't work
in the movie, hit the "View List" button below!
Did Work: James McAvoy Lets Loose
Wow. If you thought James McAvoy was good in Split, then expand to have your mind blown when you go and watch Glass.
The actor is absolutely phenomenal and we're introduced to a lot of new personalities, some of which are pretty funny and others that will totally freak you out. Honestly, this is probably what we should have seen in Shyamalan's last movie but if the filmmaker was holding out on us, it was worth the wait.
McAvoy is a tremendous actor and it's a blast to see him get the spotlight here; it's fair to say that this movie belongs to him.