Shyamalan Talks GLASS: The Pitch and The Running Time

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In a little over a month’s time, M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass will hit theaters and wrap up the trilogy of Unbreakable and Split. As previously reported, Shyamalan is aiming to keep the thriller genre spirit of Split in tact for Glass and has revealed that much like its predecessors, the film now ranks as his most challenging creation to date as a filmmaker. One of those challenges had to do with the film’s length.

In a new interview with Digital Spy, Shyamalan elaborated on that particular wrinkle in the process. He stated, “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.”

After realizing that he didn’t necessarily need to fully recount the events of the first two films in Glass, the director opted to go for a more immediate approach to the storytelling. Shyamalan explained, “All she needs to go is, ‘My name is Patricia’ and you’re there. That’s a much longer scene in the screenplay where you’re reliving the humour and the relationship and the connection to the girls and even realizing she has multiple personalities.”

Ironically though, Shyamalan’s pitch to Disney and Universal Studios seemed to predict that he would eventually reach this more streamlined approach for Glass.

“I said to [rights owners] 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 recounted. “‘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.”

I can’t lie, I think that’s actually a rather brilliant pitch.

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SOURCE: Digital Spy