Shyamalan confirms McAvoy’s The Horde was original Unbreakable villain

Last Updated on July 21, 2021

Yesterday, we shared a cool new video with you guys from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming simultaneous sequel to UNBREAKABLE and SPLIT. That video (which you can check out HERE if you missed it) featured the return of Spencer Treat Clark as Bruce Willis aka David Dunn's son and includes the dude coming up with a killer nickname for his father: The Overseer.

I'm a fan of that name as we already knew that Samuel L. Jackson's character is, of course, called Mr. GLASS, and James McAvoy's character is called The Horde. But did you know that the original plan for The Horde was for him/them to show up and do battle with Willis' in UNBREAKABLE?

Well, now you do. Shyamalan recently spilled the cool beans over at Vulture and here's what he said:

Originally Unbreakable and Split were together. David and the Horde bump into each other at the train station, and David follows him.

So why did he kick the idea to the curb?

It’s a narrative issue. Whenever you raise the stakes, you can’t unraise them. So once you introduce girls being abducted, there’s a ticking clock that doesn’t allow for the breadth of character development that I wanted to do with David, his wife, and his kid.

Makes enough sense, I guess. But whatever the reason was behind jettisoning The Horde from The Overseer's origin story, I trust Shyamalan's instincts (at least back then). And it seems the man's instincts have returned to (near) full-force as SPLIT was pretty badass and GLASS looks like it's going to kick ALL the ass later this month. How excited are you to see The Overseer and The Horde finally battle it out? Let us know below!

Here's the official GLASS synopsis: 

M. Night Shyamalan brings together the narratives of two of his standout originals—2000’s Unbreakable, and 2016’s Split—in one explosive, all-new comic-book thriller: Glass. From Unbreakable, Bruce Willis returns as David Dunn as does Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price, known also by his pseudonym Mr. Glass. Joining from Split are James McAvoy, reprising his role as Kevin Wendell Crumb and the multiple identities who reside within, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke, the only captive to survive an encounter with The Beast. Following the conclusion of Split, Glass finds Dunn pursuing Crumb’s superhuman figure of The Beast in a series of escalating encounters, while the shadowy presence of Price emerges as an orchestrator who holds secrets critical to both men.

Returning with Willis and Jackson from UNBREAKABLE is Spencer Treat Clark as Dunn's son and Charlayne Woodard as Price's mother. Back with McAvoy from SPLIT is Anya Taylor-Joy (THE WITCH). Sarah Paulson (AMERICAN HORROR STORY) joins the cast this time around as well. And if you're looking forward to witnessing all the UN-SPLIT-ABLE mayhem this January, then you might be interested to know that the film has scored a PG-13 rating via the powers that be over at the MPAA for "violence including some bloody images, thematic elements, and language."

Shyamalan produced GLASS with Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, Ashwin Rajan, and Marc Bienstock. Steven Schneider, Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, and Kevin Frakes served as executive producers. GLASS is scheduled to twist and turn its way into theatres on January 18, 2019.