More than Meets The Eye

After seeing the Netflix Original Movie Bird Box, there’s definitely more than what meets the eye. Bird Box directed by Susanne Bier which takes place during the post-apocalyptic era, where mother, Malorie played by Sandra Bullock, must take her two unnamed children on a dangerous journey through the river to find safety from a deadly force that’s lurking which five years earlier made the world commit mass suicide except for survivors who strayed away from light.

Throughout the journey, Bullock and her children in the movie must strictly wear a blindfold no matter how doubting the task is. According to Forbes, “26 million U.S. viewers tuned in to watch Bird Box in its first seven days of availability (Dec. 21-27).” Bird Box even beat movies like Mary Poppins Returns and Aquaman which debuted at the box office.

A few weeks later 80 million people viewed the movie and it was eventually turned into memes and controversial challenges. It was reported that a teen from Utah blacked out his car windows and wore a blindfold while driving, thus attempting “the Birdbox Challenge”, which of course, resulted in a car accident.

While Bird Box may be the most talked about movie at the moment many critics have noticed the differences between Netflix’s adaptation of the story vs. the book. It was claimed by Insider that the 2014 novel was more spread out and Bullock’s journey was only four years instead of five years in the movie. Bullock’s husband “Tom” was more prominent in the Netflix version than the novel, and the book had a more horrific ending rather than the movie, where Bullock and her two children just end up at a school for the blind.    

 This was a great move for Netflix, despite the controversy, it was different and brought many people out of their comfort zone which got people talking, and made people try a different genre for a change.