“Bird Box” thriller is back, writes “Streaming” columnist NICK OVERALL, but this time there’s a geographical twist.

IN 2018 Netflix’s original thriller flick “Bird Box” took the world by storm.

The horror hit starring Sandra Bullock was watched by 45 million accounts in its first seven days alone, carving itself out as Netflix’s most popular original movie at the time of release.

It was the film’s simple but effective premise which made it such an internet sensation, that being a mysterious race of monsters that drive people to insanity by merely being looked at.

“Bird Box” charted the story of a family in the resulting post-apocalyptic world who board up windows, blindfold their faces and anything else they can to avoid even the smallest glance at these terrifying creatures. 

Are they Aliens? Demons? “Bird Box” left an intriguing question mark about what these monsters actually are and it resulted in a new spin-off series that’s now streaming.

“Bird Box Barcelona” dives even deeper into the dystopia, this time following a father and daughter and their scurry for survival in the decimated streets of the famed Spanish city.

It seems like this newest instalment might also be the beginning of a wider franchise.

There’s now rumours Netflix is producing a number of spin-offs based on “Bird Box” that will track how humans across different countries and cultures battle for survival.

Although unlikely, it’d be great to see a blockbuster of this size brought down under. Magpie Box?

THIS month famed director Steven Soderbergh has a new series streaming on Binge.

From “Ocean’s Eleven” to “Erin Brockovich” to “Magic Mike”, the American filmmaker has had a solid run at keeping audiences glued to their screens, but his profile was sent through the stratosphere during the covid pandemic with his 2011 film “Contagion”. 

It made headlines around the world for its eerily accurate prediction of how modern society would cope with a global pandemic. Almost a decade after its release, audiences flocked back to the film during lockdown. 

All this is to say that Soderbergh has managed to keep his finger on the cultural pulse, knowing what puts eyes on screens and it looks like his newest series “Full Circle” is about to do the same.

Set in New York, this crime thriller surrounds a botched kidnapping of the child of an uber-rich family who oversee a Manhattan culinary empire.

There’s been no skimping on the cast either, with “Homeland” star Claire Danes as the victim’s mother, and who’s supported by Dennis Quaid and Timothy Olyphant among a talented ensemble of characters whose lives wrap and weave together as the mystery unfolds.

Crime mini-series have come to represent some of the best telly out there, because from the very get-go the plot has been written with an ending in mind, rather than being dragged out over multiple seasons.

The stage is set for Soderbergh to deliver another winner.

THE sci-fi rom-com sub-genre is one that’s rarely explored but when done right proven a powerful way to tell a story.

Take Spike Jonze’s 2014 film “Her”, about a man who falls in love with an AI companion or Netflix’s anthology series “Black Mirror”, with an episode that has explored the idea of dating in virtual reality.

Now Amazon Prime Video has taken a stab at it, with “Robots”. In this peculiar prediction of tomorrow, humans have robot doubles built to carry out mundane and undesirable tasks.

The film follows gold-digger Elaine (Shailene Woodley), and womaniser Charles (Jack Whitehall), an unlikely duo forced to team up and track down their automoton counterparts when they go missing.

While the film starts strong, it later suffers from the pitfalls of the standard rom-com affair, losing  its potential for some interesting social commentary in the process.

It’s a shame because the premise does have so much fun potential, unfortunately though “Robots” turns out to be about as creative as its title.