*Shudder*
By now, we've all seen Bird Box. Since it aired on Netflix in late December, everybody has been talking about it. Starring Sandra Bullock, it has sparked a million memes, influencers have been creating Bird Box inspired make-up looks, and people have started naming their children Boy and Girl.
Okay, the last one maybe not. But it's fair to say it has become a bit of a phenomenon.
If you're yet to sit down and enjoy the post-apocalyptic thriller, then we advise you to stop reading this and get yourself in front of Netflix immediately.
Otherwise, we're going to blow your minds by telling you about the alternative ending - and it's very dark.
You'll remember how things tie up at the end of the two-hour movie. Malorie successfully gets Boy and Girl to the safety of a blind school which has become a sanctuary where people are safely living away from the evil outside. When they arrive, they bump into Malorie's doctor - who was there for Malorie during her pregnancy - and she decides to give her children real names, before letting them go off and play with the other children. All very sweet after a 120 minutes of nail biting.
However - yes, there's a however - things don't exactly pan out so nicely for Malorie, Boy and Girl in the original story. The film is based on Josh Malerman's book of the same name, and the ending is very different.
In the novel, the three do end up at the safe space, but when they arrive they realise that everyone there has blinded themselves to stay safe. The only way that they can protect themselves from the evil outside is to do the same. Dark.
So why did the film take a different direction? Director Susanne Bier told Polygon: 'The movie is slightly more positive.
'The movie is, in many aspects, different from the book, but it's also very rooted in the book. The book also has a kind of positive ending and I would not have wanted to do an apocalyptic movie that didn't have a hopeful ending.
'In a way, pretty much everything I've done has had some sort of a hopeful ending. I'm not particularly interested for the audience to leave, from the cinema or their own screen, with a kind of completely bleak point of view. That's not really what I believe in.'
Phew.
