'Glass' Projected to Take in $70 Million Opening Weekend

Anticipation for Glass has been building for nearly two years, longer than fans even knew the film would be coming together. That anticipation is evident in box office estimates, with Variety claiming claiming the film could earn more than $70 million in its opening weekend.

With three weeks to go before its debut, some tracking numbers hint at Glass earning more than $75 million in its Martin Luther King holiday weekend opening, while other estimates place it closer to $50 million. January releases aren't known for taking in big numbers, so even if Glass earns closer to the $50 million mark, it could take the second-biggest January opening behind American Sniper's $107 million and ahead of Ride Along's $48 million.

While filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan had been suffering a box office slump with some of his projects, the director's return to straightforward-but-captivating thrillers in 2017 led Split to earn $40 million in its opening weekend on its way to $278 million worldwide. The final moments of the film revealed that it was secretly a follow-up to Shyamalan's 2000 film Unbreakable, which starred Bruce Willis. Glass is set to be the conclusion to the trilogy that kicked off nearly two decades ago, something which fans of Unbreakable doubted would ever happen.

The upcoming team-up was clearly a story that Shyamalan had been thinking about for years, leading to a massive script that ultimately had to be cut down.

"The script was really long, it was almost 150 pages and the first cut of the movie was three hours and 20 minutes, it was really long," Shyamalan shared with Digital Spy. "Then it started tightening [and] tightening until we got to the 2.08 that you can see."

One of the first sequences to be cut from the bloated runtime was a scene which recounted the events of the first two films.

"All she needs to go is, 'My name is Patricia' and you're there," the filmmaker shared of a scene featuring Sarah Paulson's character. "That's a much longer scene in the screenplay where you're reliving the humor and the relationship and the connection to the girls and even realizing she has multiple personalities."

Despite the excitement surrounding the new film, don't expect to see the franchise continue.

"I don't want to relive stuff and I don't want to be an opportunist, that's not the relationship that I have with the audience, that I aspire to," Shyamalan admitted. "My aspiration is they know they're going to get an original thriller every single time. That's where my tastes go, so I'm going to say no [to another movie] right now."

Check out Glass when it lands in theaters on January 18, 2019.

How much do you think the new film will earn in its opening weekend? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!