Before comic book movies were all the rage, there was M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable (and X-Men four months prior).
Unbreakable was a realistic comic book movie that starred Bruce Willis as the “super” hero and Samuel L. Jackson as the “super” villain.
The movie made almost $250 million at the box office (X-Men made almost $300 million).
There has been sequel talk since the movie’s release, and now fifteen years later, M. Night Shyamalan says he would still like to do a second film.
Speaking with Collider, Shyamalan offered the following:
Is he still hoping for a sequel?
Yeah, I do sometimes. I love those characters and I love that world. Of course, the whole world makes comic book movies now. At the time, it was completely novel. I remember when I made it, Disney was literally like, “Comic books?! There’s no market for comic books!” That’s all they make now! It was a hilarious conversation. I remember it. I was like, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe nobody will come see comic book movies.” They were like, “Those are people in little conventions who like comic books.” And I was like, “But, I like comic books!”
It would be interested to see Unbreakable in the world of today:
Yeah. But the beauty of the world of Unbreakable is that you’re playing it for reality. It should never feel like a comic book movie. It feels like a straight-up drama. It’s real. You’re confronting the possibility that comic book characters were based on people that were real. That’s the premise, so the tone has to be super grounded. It would be cool.