'Bird Box' Originally Had A Much Darker Ending

[Major spoilers for Bird Box]

By now, you’re probably among the 45 million Netflix users (or a broke college student using their parents’ account) who have watched Bird Box, the Sandra Bullock-starring post-apocalyptic thriller about a world where looking outside equals death. It’s a genuine phenomenon for the streaming service, with memes and even a dangerous challenge, but it could have gone so wrong if, say, the movie showed the monster or producers went with the original ending.

Bird Box, the movie, ends with Malorie (Bullock) and Boy and Girl seeking refuge at a school for the blind, where she reunites with her doctor, Dr. Lapham. The kids are finally given names — Tom and Olympia — birds are released, and everyone lives happily ever after, except for the millions of people outside the community. Bird Box, the book, goes a different, much darker route, and director Susanne Bier opted to adjust the ending.

Malorie and the kids find shelter in Josh Malerman’s novel, but the community is filled with people who intentionally gouged their eyes out. She refuses to do the same for Boy and Girl, and herself, so they remain blindfolded, rendering the entire perilous journey meaningless. Yay! “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,” director Susanne Bier said about the book-to-film tweak. “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.”

Was there a third ending, also …. ?