The increasingly long waits between seasons of new TV shows on streaming – and arguably Netflix in particular – has become a common irritance among subscribers who often have to wait upwards of two years for their favorite shows to return, but Bird Box: Barcelona has them all beat by arriving five years late to the party.
When the feature film premiered back in 2018, it became a cultural phenomenon that captured the cultural zeitgeist like few other Netflix originals had done before, or have done since for that matter. The psychological sci-fi horror ended up as one of the platform’s biggest-ever hits, and spawned social media challenges that took over everyone’s timelines on every major app.
And yet, when was the last time you heard anyone talk about it? Sandra Bullock stumbling blindfolded through the apocalypse was an entertaining enough ride while it lasted, but surely it’s way too late to be pulling the trigger on a localized episodic expansion that unfolds in the titular Spanish city.
Then again, the company has been crying out for as many potential expanded universes as possible, so why not Bird Box? It might be able to recapture the magic that turned the original into a sensation that came close to taking over the world and the apex of its initial popularity, but it remains to be seen if anyone is even going to care half as much now that we’re half a decade down the line.
There’s no shame in being proven wrong, but more Bird Box seems like a desperate attempt to try and recapture lightning in a bottle.
