Out of all the M. Night Shyamalan movies, the one that's most ripe for a sequel is, of course, Unbreakable. Much of that has to do with the fact that Unbreakable -- about a man (Bruce Willis) who survives a devastating train crash without a scratch on him and doesn't know why -- has a rich mythology that's totally worth exploring more, especially in a moviegoing climate heavily populated by superhero stories.
If anything, Unbreakable is a superhero story that stands out and already has tremendous fan support... so where's its sequel?
Shyamalan has teased a follow-up over the years, and both Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson have welcomed a return to the Unbreakable universe, but so far nothing has happened. Never say never, though, and while promoting his new TV show Wayward Pines, the writer-director (who has a new thriller called The Visit hitting screens in September) teased a possible scenario that would not just find Unbreakable heading to the small screen, but one where we could potentially see multiple sequels across several platforms.
Shyamalan explains to IGN:
"Could you do a six-episode 'Unbreakable' series on Netflix or HBO? Yeah! That's cool. I even had an idea of doing a story that goes in one form, and a second part that's in another form, and a third one's in a different form. You never do the same form. It would be like, movie, then, let's say, cable, to TV, whatever, and then a play; it goes straight online, and it finishes like that. It's in four different forms, and it never goes back to the old one. It could be kind of cool."
Granted, Shyamalan could apply that ambitious format to any story, not just Unbreakable -- and it would be a fascinating experiment to see how the audience would take to a story told across multiple formats, including one that's onstage. Could it work? Would you go?
And what about an Unbreakable sequel? Do you think it would work better as, say, a movie trilogy or a six-episode Netflix series?
