Split producer says the budget for Glass will be “more traditonal”

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

When SPLIT was released earlier this year and blew people away – both with it’s shocking ending and box office success – a sequel was instantly put on the table and a deal was finalized last month. GLASS will pit James McAvoy’s Dennis (a.k.a "The Horde") against Bruce Willis’ David Dunn, with Samuel L. Jackson's Elijah Price fitting in there somewhere. Needless to say this kind of star power and epicness needs to be properly financed, and producer Jason Blum recently assured us it will get all the money it needs.

Talking with Collider the producer – who’s having a very successful year between SPLIT and GET OUT – spoke about the budget for GLASS, saying how it will be “more traditional”, but one that won’t be hard to recoup:

The budget is more traditional, still by Hollywood standards a very low budget, but it is not $5 million.

It may sound impossible to make a movie with less than tens of millions of dollars today, especially with names like McAvoy and M. Night Shyamalan attached, but SPLIT made it work with what amounts to peanuts today (a budget listed at $9 million) and made $275 million globally. The movie should stand as one of the most profitable of the year, so naturally the studio will want to pass that along to the sequel without going overboard.

As for when we can expect shooting to get underway, Blum assured that – even though he hasn’t read the script – it will have to be soon in order to make their January 2019 release:

We hope so, I hope so. We have a release date in January of 2019, so we have to start shooting pretty soon.

Based on Blum’s words the movie could have a budget around $30-$50 million, if we’re using the word “traditional”. Though the movie will be larger in scope with a bigger cast, it’s clearly not at the level of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, so there’s no need for massive explosions or CGI critters. Most of the budget will probably go to salaries for the stars, so anyone hoping the sequel keeps the more intimate feeling of UNBREAKABLE and SPLIT can probably sleep easy. Well, as easy as you can with the black eyes and bloody teeth of McAvoy haunting your dreams like a damn shark.

GLASS is set to arrive January 2019.