Unleash the Memes, a "Bird Box" Sequel Seems Imminent

Bird Box is back! In book form!

Author Josh Malerman is penning a follow-up to his 2014 novel Bird Box, which, we don't need to tell you, was adapted into a Netflix film that debuted in late 2018.

Though the book was indeed a bestseller at the time, the film took on a life of its own after getting dumped into the endless content chasm of Netflix.

It even went on to inspire a meme so dangerous that even YouTube—which is exclusively designed to host stupid pranks and problematic influencers—told its users to cut it out already and stop taking the "Bird Box Challenge".

Netflix, which is usually pretty cagey about their viewership numbers, was so proud of how Bird Box performed over Christmas, they broke their vow of silence to say 45 million people watched it within its first week of release.

That presumably inspired Malerman (who probably likes money and having more of it) to get to work on a sequel, titled Malorie, due on bookshelves 1 October.

The next novel, as the title indicates, focuses on the character portrayed by Sandra Bullock in the movie; a helicopter mother-of-two who protects her children from suicide-inspiring monsters by telling them to shut up, not look at anything and do exactly what she says all the time. (Parents love this thing.)

"People want to know what happened with [the kids] Boy and Girl," Malerman told Esquire, adding, "as much as I care about Boy and Girl, this isn’t their story."

"The Bird Box world is Malorie’s story, and I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to get to know her even better. At the end of the movie, I turned to my girl Allison and said, 'I want to know what happens next!' and she’s like, 'Well, you know, you could make that happen,' so it really was this warm feeling."

Though Netflix hasn’t said whether or not they’ll be adapting Malorie into a movie, you’d have to imagine they’d jump on it, given they’re yet to launch a successful film franchise on their service.

(Spoiler alert): Interestingly, a spin-off/sequel movie had already been suggested by Alita: Battle Angel’s Rosa Salazar, who, along with Machine Gun Kelly (regrettably), played Bullock’s only surviving co-stars. This is despite the fact their characters don’t appear in the original book.