January is usually a dumping ground for lackluster releases but 2019 can rely on M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass to be the first box office hit of the New Year according to box office tracking.
The sequel to 2000’s Unbreakable & 2016’s Split entered tracking today with a 4-day start over MLK weekend that’s around $75 million. If this estimate holds up, Glass will rank second-best MLK launch behind Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper which came in at $107.2 million in 2015.
M. Night Shyamalan’s Split was a January surprise back in 2016 when it opened to $40 million & went on to gross $138.2 million domestically & $278.4 million worldwide on a $9 million budget. Glass, which is also written & produced by Shyamalan, follows Bruce Willis’ security guard David Dunn from Unbreakable who uses his supernatural abilities to track down Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a disturbed man who has 24 personalities. This character was introduced in Split & Glass also brings back Samuel L. Jackson’s Unbreakable bad guy Mr. Glass for this latest outing.
Buena Vista International, Disney’s foreign division, is handling overseas rights on Glass. The studio originally handled Shyamalan’s Unbreakable which made $95 million domestically and $248.1 million worldwide. Universal Pictures and Blumhouse are handling things stateside for the rare joint venture. 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. In total awareness, Glass is strong across the board with males and females.
Glass hits screens on January 19
