Following its release at the end of 2018, Netflix’s Sandra Bullock-led horror film Bird Box went on to become one of the biggest Netflix movies of all time. The 282 million hours of viewership that the film racked up during its first month of streaming availability was surpassed by only two other Netflix movies — Red Notice (364 million hours) and Don’t Look Up (359.7 million hours), both released in 2021. Small wonder, then, that Netflix has decided to expand Bird Box with a spinoff movie, set in Spain, that’s coming this summer to freak us out all over again.
Bird Box Barcelona, Netflix announced on Tuesday, will arrive on July 14. “After a mysterious force decimates the world’s population,” the streaming giant teases about the new movie, “Sebastian must navigate his own survival journey through the desolate streets of Barcelona. As he forms uneasy alliances with other survivors and they try to escape the city, an unexpected and even more sinister threat grows.”
As a reminder: What made the original Bird Box movie so utterly terrifying was its central conceit. A mysterious force that decimates the world’s population will take your life if you see it, which is why Bullock’s character took her children on a treacherous path to safety … blindfolded. Netflix, so far, hasn’t said much more about the spinoff Bird Box movie, other than that it’s coming from the same producers of the original.
Nevertheless, that’s more than enough to be excited, for the moment, for this upcoming release. In a post yesterday, I wrote about the lamentable state of Netflix’s original movies at the moment — based on the fact that, for example, a grand total of just one Netflix original is currently among its Top 10 movies in the US. It’s AKA, and even that one has only just squeaked into the ranking, currently standing at #10.
Giving subscribers more of what they’ve already proven they love, a la Bird Box, is a welcome step in the right direction.
