'Glass' Expected To Shatter January Box Office Records

It's still a few weeks away from release, but early Glass box office tracking indicates M. Night Shyamalan's climb back to the top is holding strong. The thriller, which serves as a sequel to both Unbreakable and Split, is expected to haul in around $50 million when it opens January 18, kicking-off the MLK weekend. If this turns out to be accurate, it would give Glass the second-biggest MLK weekend opening ever.

I'm very happy for M. Night Shyamalan. The filmmaker had great critical and box office success early in his career, but as his filmography expanded, the accolades diminished. Soon, the director reached a point where studios were afraid to even advertise his name in trailers (as was the case with After Earth, the 2013 Will Smith sci-fi film Shyamalan directed). But now, Shyamalan is back on top. His scary old people found footage flick The Visit was a fun surprise, and his follow-up Split raked in an impressive $278.4 million world wide on a $9 million budget.

Early Glass box office tracking confirms that this is no fluke: M. Night is back, baby. Deadline says the filmmaker's upcoming thriller is on track to earn $50 million during its opening weekend. If true, that will give Glass the second-best MLK weekend opening ever, behind Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (which opened with $107 million). Here are some more specifics, per the Deadline article:

Total unaided awareness for Glass —that survey category where those being polled bring up the film's title without being prompted– is higher than that of Blumhouse/Universal's Get Out and Split. First Choice for Glass is higher than Conjuring 2, The Nun, Get Out and just under that of Logan. In total awareness, Glass is strong across the board with males and females.

I've remained a Shyamalan supporter over the years. Hell, I even enjoy The Happening on some weird level. So it warms my heart to see him back at the top of the box office again. And I'm very excited for Glass, which will complete a story began all the way back in 2000 with Unbreakable.

In Glass, real-life superhero David Dunn (Bruce Willis) finds himself locked up in the same mental asylum as his old friend/arch-nemesis, Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson). Also inside: Kevin Wendell Crumb, the man with multiple personalities first introduced in Split. There's still a lot we don't know about Glass, but from the looks of things, Elijah plans to manipulate Kevin to help him with some nefarious task, and only David can stop them. But the three are also under the care of a psychiatrist (played by Sarah Paulson), who is trying to convince them that they're all mentally ill, and not in possession of superpowers.

Glass opens January 18, 2019.