Major, major spoilers for Split continue below. If you haven't seen the film and don't want to know the twist ending, do not continue reading below.
M. Night Shyalaman has upped his twist game with Split: in this new thriller, the surprise at the end is that it's actually a secret sequel to one of his first films.
In the final minutes of the movie, Split reveals itself to be set in the same universe as Unbreakable, the 2000 superhero thriller starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. A woman in a diner remarks that the superhero nickname "The Horde" given to James McAvoy's Split character Kevin, who develops superhuman strength through one of his split personalities, reminds her of a similar nicknamed supervillain in a wheelchair from years before. The camera pans over to reveal Willis as an older David Dunn, who offers up the name of Jackson's Unbreakable character: Mr. Glass.
When looking back at Split through that lens, it's clear how this new Shyamalan movie does fit into the Unbreakable universe. The twist ending is more than just a gimmicky way to surprise audiences; the Unbreakable-Split connection is baked into the DNA of this new film. That's because this has been a twist Shyamalan has been sitting on since he originally conceived Unbreakable.
Speaking at the Split Los Angeles premiere at AFI Fest in November, Shyalaman explained to the audience that he originally conceived McAvoy's character as a part of Unbreakable. "This was a character that was in the original screenplay," he said, via Nerdist.
Shyamalan ultimately pulled Kevin out of Unbreakable because "he was throwing off the balance of the piece [by being] too many characters." But he found himself still intrigued by that character, and wanted to spend more time with all of Kevin's personalities and hoped to one day do a spin-off.
When he finally moved forward with the low budget horror film, Shyamalan was still on the fence about whether he should connect Split back to Unbreakable. "I did toy with making it a totally unrelated thing. I pulled it, and then I was like, 'I want them connected.' And then I was like, 'Maybe I should just make it unrelated.' And then I was like, 'You know what? Let's connect it,'" the director told Cinemablend. His pitch internally was to make a movie where you didn't realize you were watching a sequel until the very end.
Split ultimately is a supervillain origin movie, and as a tie-in to Unbreakable, it does set up a potential third film. Looking forward, Shyamalan does have the intention to make a "final movie," though no concrete plans in place for an Unbreakable 2.
"I never know what’s going to happen when I get in the room alone and start writing. So that’s the only reason it can’t be a promise. I may fail myself, and I don’t get inspired by doing sequels. What I like is the unknown, when I don’t know what I’m writing," he told Birth.Movies.Death. "But I do have an idea. And I’m kind of excited about it. So I can’t say 100% yet. I might be able to soon, and it’ll turn into a promise then, but it’s not a promise yet."
Birth.Movies.Death also has a killer theory about how Split connects to Unbreakable beyond just the twist ending. Remember that train that Kevin's father died on, which ties back to Kevin's transformation into the beast at the end of the film? BMD's theory is that the train accident that resulted in his death is the same one Mr. Glass orchestrated in Unbreakable -- meaning he unwittingly birthed another supervillain in the process. Hopefully a potential third film confirms this awesome theory.
Would you want to see Unbreakable and Split come together in a third, final film? Let us know in the comments below.
Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire