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Comic-Con: New 'Glass' trailer spotlights its villains, 'Halloween' honors leading lady

SAN DIEGO - M. Night Shyamalan was just a little too early in putting superheroes vs. villains on a big screen. But with "Glass" on the way, pop culture couldn’t be more ready.

Way before the Marvel movies, back in 2000, the writer/director found it “disheartening” when people didn’t embrace his 2000 thriller “Unbreakable” the way they did “The Sixth Sense.”

“I remember when we were thinking of marketing the movie, the studio said, ‘We can’t mention the word ‘comic books’ or ‘superhero’ because it’s too fringe. Those are the people who go to those conventions.’ That was an exact quote,” Shyamalan said during a Comic-Con panel featuring “Glass” (in theaters Jan. 19, 2019) as well as the horror movie “Halloween.”

“Glass” brings together again the brittle-boned evil mastermind Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) and indestructible hero David Dunn (Bruce Willis). But it’s also the last chapter of a trilogy that includes 2016’s "Split," which introduced the multiple personalities of Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), aka The Beast.

The first trailer for "Glass" premiered at Friday's panel and introduced psychiatrist Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), who studies people who believe they are superheroes. Her newest patients? Glass, Dunn and Kevin. The new footage showed David being a raincoat-clad vigilante but also teased the supervillain teamup of Glass and the Beast.

Bruce Willis stayed mum about where David is at in his life — the character appeared at the end of “Split” — but Jackson shared his excitement for returning to his bad guy. “I just love the complexity of Elijah. He has his mom who’s the only one who understands him. And he has a belief that’s stronger than anything anybody can take from him.”

The presentation also presented a new clip from “Halloween” showing masked maniac Michael Myers going door-to-door murdering people on Halloween night — but leaving a crying baby alone in a crib.

Just as iconic as Michael, though, is Laurie Strode, the role Jamie Lee Curtis reprises 40 years after she faced off against the classic horror-movie villain in the original “Halloween.”

“She has carried the trauma and the PTSD of someone who’s been attacked randomly,” Curtis says. “The narrative of my life is not that victim and this is a woman who’s been waiting 40 years to face the person she knows is coming back.”

She also pointed out the victims of the USA Gymnastics sexual-abuse scandal accepting their Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs this week. “Those women stood up there and said, ‘You no longer control our narrative.’ (Laurie Strode) is taking back her narrative.”

One heartfelt presentation moment came near the end during a fan question-and-answer session, when Curtis left the stage to embrace a man who said that the original “Halloween” saved his life when he recalled Laurie when a man broke into his house.

“That kind of emotion is real. We come to a movie to get scared … but it has to be based in a reality and something you can believe in,” Curtis said. “The reality of life is what makes stepping into a role 40 years later easy.”