Bird Box Information

Bird Box is a 2018 American post-apocalyptic drama thriller film directed by Susanne Bier from a screenplay written by Eric Heisserer, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Josh Malerman. The film follows a woman, played by Sandra Bullock, who, along with a pair of children, dubbed Boy and Girl, must make it through a forest and river blindfolded to avoid supernatural entities which cause people who see them to die by suicide. Trevante Rhodes, Jacki Weaver, Rosa Salazar, Danielle Macdonald, Lil Rel Howery, Tom Hollander, BD Wong, Sarah Paulson, Colson Baker, and John Malkovich also star.

Bird Box had its world premiere at AFI Fest on November 12, 2018, and began a limited release on December 14, before streaming worldwide on Netflix on December 21, 2018.

Plot

A tense mother, Malorie, sternly informs two unnamed children, a girl and a boy, that they will be going on a dangerous journey down a river in a boat. She strictly instructs them to not remove their blindfolds"?or else they will die.

Five years earlier, Malorie is pregnant and is visited by her older sister Jess while painting. Before going to a routine pregnancy checkup, they briefly discuss a strange news story regarding mass suicides throughout all of Europe particularly Romania and Russia; however, Malorie dismisses the news story as irrelevant. While they are leaving the doctor's office later, Malorie sees a woman bashing her head into a glass panel. As panic and chaos erupt in the city, they attempt to escape in Jess's car. While Malorie is distracted by a ringing cell phone in the back seat, Jess briefly sees something that frightens her. She crashes the car in an apparent attempt to harm herself. Injured and horrified, Malorie is unable to stop her sister. Visibly affected by what she has seen, Jess steps in front of a large truck, killing herself.

Malorie follows the mob, and is pushed to the ground. She is rescued by a woman and led to a band of survivors hiding in a house, although the woman sees a creature and commits suicide by entering a burning car. As media communications go off-line, the group tries to figure out what has happened. One survivor named Charlie surmises that demons are the cause. They all concur that simply seeing the creatures can cause humans to go insane and commit suicide. They cover the windows to shield themselves from the chaos and creatures outside. Greg attempts to use the house's security cameras to see outside as he believes a digital image of the creatures will not harm him, but is affected regardless and commits suicide.

As time passes, food supply concerns give rise to the discussion of leaving their safe house. Malorie, Charlie, and a few fellow survivors, Tom, Douglas, and Lucy, decide to go to a nearby supermarket to get supplies. They black out the windows in the car and use the car"?s proximity sensors and GPS to navigate their drive to the supermarket. During the drive, they encounter some of the creatures but manage to drive off, arriving at the store. Inside the store, Malorie finds pet birds which she decides to adopt. Douglas gets drunk and suggests that the group stays permanently in the supermarket, but others reject this idea. Hearing someone call for help, they open a loading dock door to let a man into the store. As the door opens, the birds begin to screech and flap their wings, indicating that they can detect the creatures without seeing them. The man in the loading dock attacks the group as he has been controlled by the creatures in order to infect other humans. Charlie sacrifices himself to save the others, who are able to make it back safely to the house. Later, Lucy and Felix steal the car, effectively abandoning everyone at the house without any means of transportation.

Soon thereafter, Olympia, a pregnant survivor, lets a wandering survivor, Gary, into the house against Douglas's protest, and the group locks up Douglas in the garage as punishment. Gary speaks of infected survivors who are insane and are compelled to force unaffected humans to look at the creatures. When both Olympia and Malorie go into labor, Gary reveals himself to be one of the insane people he described. He attacks the survivors in the house and proceeds to remove all the coverings from the windows. Gary murders Douglas and forces Olympia and another survivor to view the creatures, resulting in their immediate suicides. Tom barely manages to kill Gary and save Malorie and the two newborns, leaving all the other dead survivors in the house.

Five years later, Tom and Malorie are living together with the children, whom Malorie calls only Boy and Girl, when they receive a transmission from a survivor stating that they are well and safe at a community downriver. Tom wants to go to the safe community, but Malorie fears it is a trap. Shortly after the transmission, Malorie flees with the two children when a group of infected survivors finds them in the house in which they are hiding in and attempt to kill them. Tom manages to kill all the infected but sees a creature and shoots himself.

Malorie decides they have to seek better shelter. Blindfolded, she takes the children, who are also blindfolded, and the pet birds to a rowboat next to a river. Their journey is harrowing and dangerous. After surviving raging rapids, an insane infected man, and even capsizing, they make landfall. The entities tempt the children and Malorie to remove their blindfolds by mimicking the voices of loved ones but are unsuccessful, and the small family eventually reaches the community.

Malorie learns that the compound is an old school for the blind, and most members of the community are blind, making them immune to the entities. She also reunites with Dr. Lapham, the doctor who attended her during her pregnancy checkup a few years prior. She finally gives the children names, Olympia for the girl and Tom for the boy, and releases the birds that have long kept her family from harm.

Cast

• Sandra Bullock as Malorie Hayes
• Trevante Rhodes as Tom
• Jacki Weaver as Cheryl
• Rosa Salazar as Lucy
• Danielle Macdonald as Olympia
• Colson Baker as Felix
• Lil Rel Howery as Charlie
• Tom Hollander as Gary
• BD Wong as Greg
• Pruitt Taylor Vince as Rick
• Sarah Paulson as Jessica Hayes
• John Malkovich as Douglas
• Vivien Lyra Blair as "Girl"/Olympia
• Julian Edwards as "Boy"/Tom
• Parminder Nagra as Dr. Lapham
• Rebecca Pidgeon as Lydia
• Amy Gumenick as Samantha
• Taylor Handley as Jason
• Happy Anderson as the River Man
• David Dastmalchian as Whistling Marauder
• Keith Jardine as Yelling Marauder

Production

Film rights to Bird Box were optioned by Universal Pictures in 2013, prior to the book's release. Scott Stuber and Chris Morgan were set to produce the film, with It and Mama director Andy Muschietti attached as director. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer was in negotiations to pen the script. In July 2017, it was announced that Netflix had acquired the rights to the book after Stuber became head of the feature film division of Netflix and would develop the film, with Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich starring. Susanne Bier was announced as the director. In October 2017, Danielle Macdonald, Trevante Rhodes, Jacki Weaver, Sarah Paulson, Rosa Salazar, Lil Rel Howery, and Amy Gumenick joined the cast. In November 2017, Machine Gun Kelly and David Dastmalchian joined the cast.

Filming

Principal photography began in California in October 2017. Wilderness scenes were shot on the Smith River in the far northern part of the state, while street scenes were filmed in Monrovia, and the final scene was shot at Scripps College.

Release

The film had its world premiere at AFI Fest on November 12, 2018. However, due to the Woolsey Fire that hit California and out of respect for the victims of Thousand Oaks shooting, Netflix cancelled AFI Fest"?s red carpet coverage scheduled for the premiere. The film had a limited theatrical run begin on December 14, 2018 before starting streaming on Netflix on December 21, 2018. A week later, Netflix reported that Bird Box had the biggest seven-day viewership for any of its original films to date, with over 45 million viewers. This claim has been met with skepticism from analysts, who cited a lack of independent verification of the view count.

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 63% based on 106 reviews, with an average rating of 6.0/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bird Box never quite reaches its intriguing potential, but strong acting and an effectively chilly mood offer intermittently creepy compensation." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 52 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".