M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass” brought the director back to earth after he received positive reviews for his last two movies (“The Visit,” and “Split”) which had some in the industry proclaiming “comeback!” However, that “comeback” was indeed short-lived with “Glass” nabbing a 37% rotten rating and 42 Metascore. Too bad. I was pulling for Shyamalan, who has just made two great movies in his career (“The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable”).
“I was in London when I heard the U.S. reviews for ‘Glass’ were poor,” Shyamalan told the NYU’s Stern School of Business at a Scholar-in-Residence lecture on April 16 [via IndieWire] “I was in a makeup chair for a TV show, and I cried.”
“We’d just come back from the London screenings, which were through the roof,” he added. “We had only great screenings of the movie around the world. So essentially I wasn’t prepared. I had this false sense of being a part of the group in a safe way. But boy, did I feel distraught that day.”
“Honestly, I was feeling like, ‘Will they never let me be different without throwing me on the garbage pile?’” Shyamalan said. “The feeling of worthlessness rushed me, and to be honest, it doesn’t ever really leave. But anyway, the film went on, right? It became number one in every country in the world, and it represents my beliefs.”
“Glass” did make $111 million at the domestic box-office, but that fell $27 million short of the total, its predecessor, “Split” nabbed back in 2016. However, since Shyamalan self-funds all of his projects, it was another clear victory for him since Glass’ budget was just north of $20 million, which means he will, more than likely, continue to make more movies due to this +90 million net gain.
Bassim Tariq was the first one in the chair. The "Mogul Mowgli" director spent two years building out the Mahershala Ali vehicle before exiting in 2022, and he's now letting the air out on this one.