Bird Box is being touted as The Quiet Place but with hearing swapped for sight. In actuality, Bird Box is based on a 2014 novel, whose premise predates A Quiet Place. The book has a huge and dedicated following, and the movie adaptation has divided critics and audiences.
What does the Bird Box ending mean? Is it different from the book?
Warning, spoilers ahead for Bird Box.
Speaking to Polygon, Bird Box’s director Susanne Bier explained her take on the ending.
“The movie is slightly more positive than the book,” Bier said.
“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.”
She added: “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.
“And so for me it was key and part of what made me interested in it, was that if this scary, dystopian story, which actually has a hopeful undercurrent … there is a hopefulness in trust.
“That is a hopefulness in love. There is a hopeful note in certain values that I really appreciate it. And I thought that was hugely important.”
In a separate interview, Bier opened up on the challenges of filming with her actors blindfolded.
She revealed that Bullock injured herself at one point, telling Radio Times: “They were wearing blindfolds, and Sandra Bullock was hitting trees, hitting the cameras and, at one point, getting a proper wound.
“But she had trained with somebody who teaches blind people how to navigate – how to, through sound, figure out distances – so she had training in how to move around without looking.”
Bier spoke to Radio Times about the monsters, and how she adapted them for the film.
“The creatures mess with your mind; they tap into your deepest fear,” she said.
“And, because they tap into your deepest fear, we can’t ever see them, because that deepest fear is going to be different whoever you are.
“For me, the most exciting point in any thriller has always been that point right before you see the monster, right before you see the villain.
“That has always been the most frightening, and I wanted the whole movie to have that atmosphere.”
She added: “To be completely honest, every time I see a monster in a movie I kind of go, ‘Is that all?’”
Bird Box is available to stream on Netflix now.