Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan, better known as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian American film director, screenwriter, author, producer, and actor known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots and surprise endings. Some of his better-known movies include “The Sixth Sense”, “The Village”, “Signs”, “Unbreakable”, and his newest “Split”. In this article, I will discuss the subtle hidden relationship of the movies “Split” and “Unbreakable”.
If you have not seen “Split” it came out earlier this year and was an extremely anticipated movie. The story is about a man with multi-personality disorder, which is a severe condition in which two or more distinct identities, or personality states, are present in an individual. The man in this movie has 24 different personalities that he identifies with. At the beginning of the movie the man stalks and kidnaps three young women and bring them back to where he lives. After a series of bizarre events, and this man proving that he is clearly out of his mind, we find out that his 24th personality is called “The Beast.” He says that “The Beast is coming soon”, and by this, he means “The Beast” has never had control over his mind before. In the end “The Beast” comes to life and he becomes this insanely strong, indestructible, beast. He is not a normal human, he has the power to become different people, and in this case a real monster. He escapes and the movie ends leaving a huge cliffhanger.
At the very end of “Split”, it shows Bruce Willis, who was the star of the M. Night movie, “Unbreakable”, which was released in the year 2000. So, if you did not see “Unbreakable”, this scene would mean nothing, but at the end of “Split” when they show Bruce Willis, this was M. Night setting up a third movie which he said is 17 years in the making. In “Unbreakable”, Bruce Willis plays a man who has recently discovered something pretty interesting about himself. He has never gotten sick, never got injured, and has been in multiple accidents where many people die, but he ends up alive. He is “Unbreakable”. He discovers that he is a real-life superhero; he can’t get hurt and can lift an incredible amount of weight.
In any superhero movie there must be a villain, right? So, in u “Unbreakable” the villains' name is “Mr. Glass”, played by Samuel L. Jackson. He is Bruce Willis’s polar opposite. “Mr. Glass” is in a wheelchair, gets sick very easily, and brakes bones, but he is very smart. In the end, we find out that “Mr. Glass”, has been devising all of the horrible mass-death events that Bruce Willis was surviving.
Fun fact: “The Beast” in “Split” is believed to only come out every 17 years, and “Split” came out exactly 17 years after “Unbreakable”. So, M. Night has been working on these new-age superhero movies for almost two decades.
There is rumors that there could be a “Split” and “Unbreakable” crossover movie because of the scene at the end of “Split”. What we know for sure is, “Glass” is in the makings and will most likely be released next year. “Glass” is the sequel to “Unbreakable” so it will be Bruce Willis fighting Samuel Jackson.