Two Beastly M. Night Shyamalan Movies Are Bringing Thrills To Netflix's Top 10
Last week, Denzel Washington's thriller "The Little Things" topped the Netflix charts after having originally debuted in 2021 and failing to make much of an impact. It was a nice little post-release bump for the film, which, though it wasn't all that well received initially, had grand ambitions to do something different with the crime thriller genre by providing no actual answers to its central mystery. Now, a week later, "The Little Things" is maintaining its dominance on the Netflix charts. But all the while Denzel has been reigning supreme, two other films have been threatening him to usurp him.
Back in 2017, director M. Night Shyamalan debuted "Split," a self-financed stealth sequel to his 2000 film "Unbreakable." Rather than marketing the film as such, he kept the revelation that this was a follow-up to his earlier, Bruce Willis-led thriller, under wraps. Even Universal didn't know about the twist ending before seeing the movie, with Willis showing up at the end of "Split" and revealing that the film was set in the same universe as "Unbreakable." Thankfully, this only helped the film, which debuted to solid reviews and made $278 million on a $9 million budget (yes, you read that right).
With a return on investment like that, a threequel was all but guaranteed and in 2019, the final entry in the "Unbreakable" trilogy, "Glass," debuted. It was similarly successful, making $247 million on a $20 million budget. Unfortunately, critics were less impressed this time around, making "Glass" somewhat of an anticlimactic end to the trilogy. Fortunately for Shyamalan, Netflix has now done what it does best, and given his "Unbreakable" sequels a post-release renaissance.
Netflixers love Glass and Split
Both "Split" and "Glass", alongside a host of other TV shows and films, hit Netflix on April 1, 2024, and quickly shot into the charts. A quick glance at FlixPatrol, a site that aggregates streaming viewership numbers, shows that "Split" had the more auspicious debut, rocketing straight to the number two spot on Netflix U.S. and remaining there until April 4, when it fell to fourth position. Since then, it's tumbled to the sixth spot, then eighth, and almost dropped out of the charts altogether when it hit number 10 on April 7. For now, though, it's still hanging on.
"Glass," meanwhile has been on an opposite trajectory, hitting number eight as of April 3 before climbing to the third spot on April 4. Since then, the threequel managed to claw its way to number two, where it sat as of April 7. At the time of writing, "Glass" is at number three, while "Split" is sitting at number nine, which is either a triumph for the less celebrated of the two films or yet another reminder that Netflix viewers will watch pretty much anything.
What's interesting here is that "Glass" actually debuted on Netflix in multiple countries and seems to have piqued the interest of global audiences. The film debuted in the number one spot in Croatia, Finland, and Iceland, though it subsequently fell down the rankings fairly quickly. According to FlixPatrol, "Glass" is still charting in 16 countries around the world, making this a bit of a coup for what is quite clearly the worst entry in the "Unbreakable" saga.
What does Split and Glass' re-ascension mean?
Do the Netflix viewership numbers mean a whole lot? Not really. The company has redefined how it calculates these metrics several times and each time it still seems needlessly confusing. The streamer also launched its Top 10 website to seemingly distract from the general flimsiness of its viewing figures. All of which is to say that a lot of these rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. It's similarly worth remembering that this is all very insular and pertains only to Netflix viewing figures. Granted, this is the company that boasts the most subscribers in the world for a steaming service, but it also pumps out stuff like Kevin Hart's "Lift" on an alarmingly regular basis — a film that, despite its impressive ability to pass you by without making even a vague impression on your cortex, hit number one on the platform. In that sense, these chart rankings simply tell you that people who really liked "Lift" are also watching other stuff.
Now, Netflix has also been instrumental in exposing global audiences to media from outside their native countries, which is helping to make all our palates a little bit more sophisticated, while simultaneously numbing our neurons with an unrelenting deluge of "content." So, you could see "Split" and "Glass" climbing the charts as a serendipitous moment for the two "Unbreakable" sequels that demonstrates the positive effect of Netflix. Or, you might view the whole thing as a brief and insignificant blip in time that will soon, to borrow a phrase from Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty, be lost "like tears in rain." You know what, now that I type this, just go watch "Blade Runner" on Blu-ray and opt out of the whole thing altogether.