Alamo Drafthouse Hosting ‘Glass’ Trilogy Screening Next Weekend
While Glass will premiere internationally starting January 16, American audiences near participating Alamo Drafthouse cinemas will have an opportunity to see it before anyone else on January 12, alongside the other two installments in M. Night Shyamalan’s trilogy of superhero movies. The trilogy stars the likes of Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robin Wright, and Sarah Paulsen, among others.
Dubbed the “Shyamalanathon” by the people at Alamo Drafthouse, attendees will see Unbreakable, Split, and Glass back to back to back, with brief intermissions between each movie. The event will be held nearly an entire week before the official premiere of the movie in the United States, and the best part is that it’s all free, as long as you can get your ticket. As an added bonus, Alamon Drafthouse will be holding a Q&A session with Shyamalan that will be livestreamed to all participating locations.
For those of you unfamiliar with this series of films, Unbreakable concerned itself with how a superhero origin would play out in the “real world”, with the story of how one man wracked with survivor’s guilt could overcome it and embrace his role as a guardian. Split went in the opposite direction and explored the kind of physical traumas and psychological damage that come with them that would create a supervillain in such a world. Now, Glass will show the story of how a different supervillain, who was the mastermind behind a superhero’s rise to power, responds when he meets the hero again and teams up with the other villain.
While Unbreakable was liked at the time of its release, it wasn’t as well-received as Shyamalan’s previous film (The Sixth Sense). Nevertheless, it has gained a considerable amount of support as a cult classic over the years since its release, particularly as mass-appealing superhero movies rise substantially in number instead of being the niche market that they were prior to 2000 (barring the occasional Superman and Batman films). Seventeen years later, Split would be seen as a return to form for the director after the hype machine touting him as “The Next Spielberg” died down, and his reputation took a beating for more poorly-received films. Even better is that Split‘s big plot twist wasn’t actually a contrived one – it was simply the reveal that the story of a supervillain took place in a world where at least one superhero exists. So now, it appears that Shyamalan’s career managed to recover significantly – a twist if there ever was one.
Nearly twenty years after audiences took an ill-fated train ride with Bruce Willis, we will see the conclusion of the trilogy with a big crossover event, just like the comic books that inspired the franchise. As two villains plot to escape and reveal their presence to the world, it’s up to our hero to rise one last time and save the world, as he wsa fated to. Early buzz suggests that the film ends this series on a high note, and current box office tracking indicates that the film will be a rare January blockbuster. If you’ve got 395 minutes (and change) to spare, and you want to get a good idea of what the fuss is all about, then take a look to see if your local Alamo Drafthouse is one of the participating locations.
If you can’t make the show, then you can catch Glass with everyone else in the United States on January 18, 2019.
Grant Davis is a freelance writer who has covered entertainment news for more than seven years. His articles have frequently appeared in Star Wars News Net as well as as other entertainment-related websites. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and comic book movies, he’s completely thrilled with the current era of genre entertainment.
