Director M. Night Shyamalan was catapulted to new career heights after the release of 1999’s The Sixth Sense, a movie which earned him a Best Director nomination on the 72nd Academy Awards. Then, Shyamalan followed up with critical and commercial hits such as Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), and The Village (2004).
Things started to take a turn during 2006’s Lady In The Water, which was followed by ill-received The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013).
However, by 2015, M. Night Shyamalan seemed to have regained his groove in the horror genre, with the release of the commercial hit The Visit. In 2016, Shyamalan released Split, which initially seemed like just another standalone movie from the director. Later, it was discovered that, as a matter of fact, Split was a quasi-sequel to 2000’s Unbreakable. In the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe, this was accepted by audiences, but it certainly marked the first time an independent universe of “superheroes” shared the same universe.
With the announcement of Glass for 2019 – the third film in the series – fans began referring to the franchise as the Eastrail 177 Trilogy, since Unbreakable’s David Dunn, Split’s Kevin, and Glass’ Mr. Glass all share a connection to the Eastrail 177 train disaster that took place in the original installment. As of now, Split remains the most influential film of the series, since it was responsible for revealing that a shared universe among these characters actually exists.
These are 20 Crazy Details Behind The Making Of Split.
KEVIN IS BASED ON A REAL PERSON
Kevin may seem like a very well-crafted comic book and/or horror character that someone made up. However, little do audiences know that, in fact, Kevin was inspired by a real person.
A man by the name of Billy Milligan became the first person in the history of the United States to be acquitted of a crime based on a physiological condition. Billy suffered from what is now known as dissociative identity disorder (DID), also called “multiple personality disorder.”
After being itted to a mental health facility in Ohio, Billy Milligan was diagnosed as having 24 personalities.
Sound familiar? It is no secret that Split’s Kevin was inspired by Billy Milligan, and more specifically by the Daniel Keyes book The Minds of Billy Milligan.
STERLING K. BROWN WAS CUT FROM THE MOVIE
In 2018, Sterling K. Brown is a household name and a fully-fledged Hollywood star. The actor broke out on the television series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story and This Is Us, but has since been featured in big-budget cinematic productions such as Black Panther and the The Predator and Frozen 2.
Before all of those roles, however, Sterling K. Brown had shot scenes for Split, where he was going to play Shaw, a neighbor to Dr. Fletcher. Ultimately, M. Night Shyamalan felt that the scenes with Shaw were unnecessary to the film’s overall narrative, and decided to cut them. On the other hand, these scenes were featured in the deleted scenes section of the movie’s Blu-ray/DVD.
JOAQUIN PHOENIX WAS ORIGINALLY CAST AS KEVIN
Once upon a time, Kevin was going to be portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix. Speaking about the matter, M. Night Shyamalan said that at the time that Split was going to start shooting, Phoenix was unavailable.
Ironically, James McAvoy was also unavailable to shoot the film at the time.
However, it appears that McAvoy suddenly became available later, as he “shifted commitments with other directors and other films.” Shyamalan also revealed that he first met McAvoy at a Comic-Con, which made him realize that he was perfect for the role of Kevin.
It is important to note that, in 2016, when Split was released, Joaquin Phoenix did not release a movie. On the other hand, James McAvoy promoted both Split and X-Men Apocalypse that year.
THE DIRECTOR’S CUT IS 3 HOURS LONG
Split is the type of movie that covers a lot of bases while still leaving audiences with numerous questions about the characters in it. Well, it certainly seems like the film’s 117 minutes leave some mysteries unresolved, especially when you are aware that the movie’s original cut was about three hours long.
Somewhere, out there, M. Night Shyamalan holds a director’s cut of Split that runs for three hours. Despite the fact that the director is not particularly known for preferring very long movies – like Zack Snyder and Martin Scorsese are famous for – he no doubt seemed very interested to tell Kevin’s story and had to make tough decisions about what was left in the final cut.
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN KEVIN AND PROFESSOR X
The only movies that are part of Split's universe are Unbreakable and the Glass. However, there is a very interesting real-life connection that can be drawn between Kevin and the X-Men’s Professor X.
For one, they are both played by actor James McAvoy, and they were both seen on the big screen in 2016 (the year Split and X-Men: Apocalypse came out).
However, there is yet another interesting tidbit: Professor X has a son who, like Kevin, has dissociative identity disorder.
Legion, who is the son of Charles Xavier, clearly struggles with DID the same way that Kevin does.
In the television series Legion, fans can see the character deal with very different problems than Kevin did in Split, but their mental conditions share various similarities.
SHYAMALAN DOESN’T CONSIDER SPLIT A SEQUEL
During an interview with Empire Magazine, M. Night Shyamalan was point-blank asked if he saw Split as an Unbreakable 2. The director answered: “However you want to look at it. Maybe it’s a new format. This movie, this movie, and a final movie. However you want to look at it.”
During many interviews, it has become clear that he sees the Eastrail 177 Trilogy as more of a shared universe rather than a sequence of three films. In that way, this franchise is more akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe than to traditional cinematic trilogies.
While it is certainly a new concept to bring the shared universe concept to the horror genre, it is not entirely a new thing. Movies such as 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason had already crossed-over different properties, and The Conjuring universe has spun connected films such as Annabelle and The Nun.
KEVIN WAS GOING TO BE IN UNBREAKABLE
]Shyamalan has spoken at length about how he conceived the idea for Kevin during the same time that he was working on Unbreakable. Well, that’s no coincidence. As a matter of fact, Kevin was going to be featured in Unbreakable,.
Ultimately, his scenes were cut from the script in order to focus more on David Dunn and Mr. Glass.
Instead, Shyamalan decided that Kevin deserved to have his story told in full, which is how Split came about so many years later.
In a way, Split was a movie 16 years in the making, which is the span of time that ed between Unbreakable and Split. With Mr. Glass being released in 2019, the franchise will have spanned almost two decades.
JAMES MCAVOY GOT INJURED DURING FILMING
It is not uncommon for actors to get injured while shooting a movie, particularly when their roles require a lot of physically demanding scenes. Thus, it comes as no surprise that James McAvoy got injured while filming Split.
Speaking on the matter, the actor said, “I was meant to punch a door. It was a metal door, but it had a little square bit in it that was soft and I, of course, missed the soft bit and hit the hard bit.” Ultimately, he broke his hand – an injury that persisted for a long while.
After filming Split, James McAvoy went on to shoot 2017’s Atomic Blonde, and he underwent all of that production with a broken hand. The injury can be seen throughout the movie.
ONE OF KEVIN’S PERSONALITY IS AN EASTER EGG
Signs is not part of the Eastrail 177 Trilogy shared universe, but that does not mean that M. Night Shyamalan couldn’t take the opportunity to squeeze in a reference to one of his previous movies, right?
In Split, Kevin has 24 personalities, many of which we never actually meet. However, during a scene in which Kevin is catag his personalities on his computer, audiences can clearly see that one of the personalities goes by name of Mr. Pritchard. Sound familiar?
Lionel Pritchard, otherwise known as Mr. Pritchard, was a very important character in Signs, released two years after Unbreakable.
While this is not evidence that there is a possibility that Signs shares the Eastrail 177 Trilogy continuity, it is certainly an Easter egg worth noting.
KEVIN’S LAST MEMORY HAS A REAL-LIFE CONNECTION
In Split, Kevin reveals that his last memory is from September 18th, 2014. This seems like a very specific date that bears no significance to Unbreakable and is not mentioned ever again during Split. So what was the connection there, you may wonder?
Well, in the real world, September 18th, 2014 was a very significant day for Scotland. That day, Scotland voted to decide whether it would “split” from the United Kingdom. In the end, Scotland voted against it (55% against 44% of the votes).
So what does that have to do with Split, besides the little pun? James McAvoy, who plays Kevin, is a Scottish actor. In 2014, James remained mostly silent about whether he was in favor or against the split.
