Could Unbreakable 2 Break Shyamalan's Losing Streak?

Graeme McMillan — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 08:40:00 PDT

Now that M. Night Shyamalan's career is on something resembling the skids following the relative flop of The Happening, it's not the biggest surprise to see that he's considering a return to earlier and safer ground, in the shape of a sequel to his second movie, Unbreakable. But is the world ready for a return of a histrionic and fragile Samuel L. Jackson railing against the world? Hell yes.

Talking to MTV, Shyamalan admitted that he was definitely weighing up the idea:

I tell you I get asked about it all the time, so it’s not [an idea] I ever forget... I genuinely just asked this question the other day — should I make ‘Unbreakable 2’? ...I made the mistake of getting caught up in the hype of the immediate reaction of the movie, which, experience has shown me, is not accurate to any of my movies. And If I had been more confident and said ‘I believe in that movie, I love that movie, and I should just go start writing the second one,” that would’ve been the right move. I’ve still been thinking about it a lot and wonder if it’s too late.

Jackson claims that not only was a sequel planned from the start, but it would only have been the middle of a proposed trilogy that would have seen his character, Elijah Price escape from his mental asylum and have a final showdown with Bruce Willis' David Dunn. So is it time that Shyamalan came back to what audiences want to see, instead of the latest in a series of increasingly-unsuccessful attempts to confound expectations? He's uncertain:

I do love the [comic book movie] genre, I just wanna make sure that I’m able to express who I am. I don’t want to get so lost in the subject that I have to neuter everything that’s me in it, so maybe ‘Unbreakable’ is the comic book thing I should do — I keep coming back to that.

We know that we'd rather see Unbreakable 2 instead of either The Happening's dodgy eco-terror or The Spirit's camp noir, so put us firmly in the "make it happen" category, thanks very much.

Samuel L. Jackson, M. Night Shyamalan On The ‘Unbreakable’ Sequel That Never Was, But Might Be [MTV Splash Page]

First Official Look at Bad Guys of "The Spirit"

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:30:00 PDT

For the past couple of weeks, unauthorized, unofficial images of the main characters from Frank Miller's new flick The Spirit have been circulating online. The interest has been so intense that Lionsgate finally caved in to fan demand and released two CGI-treated images of the bad guys — Silken Floss, the evil secretary played by Scarlett Johansson (above), and The Octopus played by Samuel L. Jackson (below) — so we could see what they'll really look like in the movie.

Looks extra shiny, menacing, and awesome, and I'm excited that the effects are shaping up to resemble those in Sin City, the slick, CGI-treated film based on Frank Miller's comic book of the same name. 300, also based on a Miller book, featured similar stylized treatments. I love this trend of making movies look like comic books, since for decades comic books have tried to look more like movies. At last, the tides have turned! Mwhahaha!

First Look at The Spirit [FirstShowing]

io9: samuel jackson

Could Unbreakable 2 Break Shyamalan's Losing Streak?

First Official Look at Bad Guys of "The Spirit"