If you’ve seenBird Box, then you’re well aware that the film’s “monsters” remain unseen throughout the entirety of the film. This isn’t one of those thrillers that builds to a major reveal, or aJaws-like horror film where bits and pieces are teased until one glorious money shot. We never see the mysteriousBird Boxmonsters who arrive on Earth an immediately trigger a worldwide disaster, as those who look at them immediately commit suicide. But we almost did.
DirectorSusanne Bierpreviously revealedthat they shot scenes that showed the monsters late in the film, but the filmmaker assessed that the design simply wasn’t up to snuff:
“It so easily becomes funny. We actually shot that and spent a lot of energy on, but every time I saw it, I was like this is not going to be tense.”
Indeed, starSandra Bullockdescribed the creature as “a long fat baby” and admitted she couldn’t stop laughing.
These comments made folksverycurious to see the deleted scene, and while we don’t yet have any indication that Netflix intends to release it, we do have the next best thing: a look at theBird Boxmonster design. Indeed,SFX Atlasrevealed on Instagram (viaJoBlo) the creature design for theBird Boxmonster and… well it’s a fat baby.
The idea here, obviously, was that Bullock’s character’s greatest fear is motherhood, and so when she looked at the creature she would see something that would manifest motherhood in physical form. Apparently they hit upon a man-baby for the design and… well it’s just real bad.
This is how the filmmaking process goes sometimes. You can take a big swing and it doesn’t work, but it takes a confident director to look at something that cost a lot of time and energy (and money) and say, “No, it doesn’t work. Take it out of the movie.” EvenJohn Krasinskifamously altered the creature design forA Quiet Placein post-production, changing up the design that they had in mind all throughout filming.
So take another gander at theBird Boxmonster above and be thankful this didn’t make the movie. For more on the film, peruse our recent articles below:
