‘Bird Box’ Director Explains Why Ending Is More Positive Than Book

The Bird Box movie on Netflix featured a more uplifting ending than its source material which came in the form of a novel from Josh Malerman.

Spoilers for Netflix’s Bird Box movie follow. Major spoilers!

By the end of the live-action adaptation of Malerman’s written work came to an end, Sandra Bullock‘s Mallory had narrowly survived her post-apocalyptic journey and escorted her son and Olivia’s daughter to a school for the blind. The school was loaded with survivors who were unable to see the monster which prompted suicide upon sight of it and offered an uplifting sanctuary and sendoff for the otherwise dark and terrifying story. The positive ending was an intentional decision from director Susanne Bier.

“The movie is slightly more positive,” Bier told Polygon. “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. And so for me it was key and, and part of what made me interested in it, was that 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.”

Ultimately, Bier seems to have made the right choices in crafting her film for Netflix. The title is stirring up quite a bit of buzz among audiences who are taking to social media. Whether or not the streaming service can find a way to crank out a sequel to the very much standalone story is unknown.

Bird Box is now available for streaming on Netflix.