Samuel L. Jackson Once Felt M. Night Shyamalan Hadn’t Made a Good Movie Since ‘Unbreakable’

Samuel L. Jackson is no stranger to teaming up with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. The two first collaborated in the 2000 Shyamalan feature Unbreakable. Although Shyamalan directed many features since then, Jackson once believed the director’s subsequent films weren’t up to Unbreakable standards.

Samuel L. Jackson once thought the studio felt ‘Unbreakable’ was a failure

Shyamalan once followed up his hit debut feature The Sixth Sense with the psychological drama Unbreakable. The film, which also starred Bruce Willis, was a contemporary and unconventional take on the typical superhero origin story. It might not have been as financially successful as Sixth Sense, but many still regarded Unbreakable as one of Shyamalan’s best works.

Despite the praise the movie had received, Jackson didn’t feel the studio was as high on the movie as other critics and fans.

“I always assumed that the studio looked at it as a failure because it didn’t make as much money as the ‘I see dead people’ movie,'” Jackson once told The Hollywood Reporter.

This was just one of a few reasons why Jackson felt an Unbreakable sequel wasn’t greenlit at the time.

Samuel L. Jackson once felt M. Night Shyamalan hadn’t made a really good film since ‘Unbreakable’

Shyamalan’s Unbreakable was originally conceived as a trilogy. But as more years passed since the first movie hit theaters, it seemed more and more likely that Unbreakable would remain a standalone feature. This was disappointing to Jackson, who felt it was a mistake for Shyamalan not to continue the story as he intended. Especially since Jackson felt Shyamalan hadn’t directed a movie of Unbreakable’s quality in a long time.

“I mean, he hasn’t made a really good movie since then,” Jackson said in a 2012 interview with HuffPost.

Jackson believed the movie’s initial theatrical performance played a part in Shyamalan’s reluctance to continue Unbreakable’s story. He compared the experience to what happened to Quentin Tarantino after Tarantino released Jackie Brown.

“Well, [Shyamalan] suffered from what happened to Quentin when he made Jackie Brown. He didn’t make Pulp Fiction 2, he made Jackie Brown — which is a wonderful f***ing movie,” Jackson said. “But it wasn’t Pulp Fiction 2. Unbreakable also didn’t have the numbers of ‘I see dead people.’ That was a problem for him … for his ego and the studio, also.”

Still, Jackson had faith that if an Unbreakable sequel was ever announced, it would attract massive attention even after so many years.

“Everybody would be waiting for it, yeah. It would be crazy for it. It would trend through the roof now on Twitter,” Jackson said.

How M. Night Shyamalan surprised Samuel L. Jackson with an ‘Unbreakable’ sequel

It took some time, but eventually Shyamalan would end up penning an Unbreakable sequel after all. Upon its release, one of the biggest surprises of the 2017 Shyamalan movie Split was its connection to the Bruce Willis superhero feature. Jackson was one of the many shocked by this connection after seeing Split based on Shyamalan’s recommendation.

“I had no idea what Split was about or anything else, and [Shyamalan] said, ‘We’ll talk after you see it.’ So I went to the arranged screening and I called him immediately and was like, ‘OK dude does this mean what I think it means?’ and he was like, ‘Well first we gotta see how the movie does’. And I think the movie’s done well enough now to merit the ‘OK, let’s put this together,'” Jackson once told Collider.

Split would lead into the third Unbreakable movie Glass, finally completing Shyamalan’s superhero trilogy.