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What if someone gave you a box containing a button that, if pushed, would bring you a million dollars…but simultaneously take the life of someone you don’t know? Would you do it? And what would be the consequences?
The year is 1976. Norma Lewis (CAMERON DIAZ) is a teacher at a private high school and her husband, Arthur (JAMES MARSDEN), is an engineer working at NASA. They are, by all accounts, an average couple living a normal life in the suburbs with their young son…until a mysterious man with a horribly disfigured face appears on their doorstep (FRANK LANGELLA) and presents them with a life-altering proposition: the box.
With only 24 hours to make their choice, Norma and Arthur face a momentous moral dilemma. They soon discover that the ramifications of this decision are beyond their control and extend far beyond their own fortune and fate.
“The Box” is based upon the classic short story “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson. It was written for the screen and directed by Richard Kelly, whose 2001 sci-fi mystery thriller “Donnie Darko,” a cult classic, earned a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the Sundance Film Festival. “Donnie Darko” went on to screen at film festivals around the world and brought Kelly Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay.
“The Box” stars Cameron Diaz (“The Holiday”), James Marsden (“X-Men: The Last Stand”), Oscar® nominee Frank Langella (“Frost/Nixon”), James Rebhorn (“The International”) and Holmes Osborne (television’s “Invasion.”)
It was produced by Sean McKittrick, Richard Kelly and Dan Lin, with Sue Baden-Powell, Ted Field, Paris Kasidokostas Latsis, Terry Dougas and Edward H. Hamm Jr. serving as executive producers. The behind-the-scenes creative team includes director of photography Steven Poster (“Stuart Little 2”), production designer Alexander Hammond (“Flightplan”), editor Sam Bauer (“Donnie Darko”) and costume designer April Ferry (“Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”). Original music is provided by Win Butler, Régine Chassagne and Owen Pallett.
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Radar Pictures and Media Rights Capital, “The Box.” The film will be distributed domestically by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. “The Box” has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images.
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ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
“There are always consequences.”
“At the heart of ‘The Box’ is a moral dilemma,” says writer/director Richard Kelly. “What would you do if offered the opportunity for great wealth but it came at the cost of a human life, someone you don’t know?”
That is the question posed in the original short story Button, Button, written by master of suspense Richard Matheson, which captured Kelly’s imagination and serves as the basis and inspiration for “The Box.” “I’ve always admired Matheson for his ability to create stories that both haunt and entertain,” he says. “I was immediately taken with this deceptively simple tale and I wanted to know more. Where does the box come from? What does it mean? Could the people who push that button ever hope to redeem themselves…and how? It had a tantalizing, cliffhanger of an ending that made me want to jump to the other side to see what happens next.”
Producer Sean McKittrick, whose first feature film collaboration with Kelly was the director’s acclaimed debut, “Donnie Darko,” sees “The Box” as “a classically told suspense tale and character study—with a twist. Any time you’re dealing with money, it can affect people’s morality or ethics. But you have to remember there are always repercussions.”
Cameron Diaz, who stars as Norma Lewis, takes a similarly analytic approach. “It’s a question we all kept asking ourselves. I feel that no one really knows what they would do until they’re faced with that kind of decision. On the surface, it’s easy to say, ‘I know exactly what I’d do.’ But circumstances could be different at any given time, for any person. It’s not as simple as it seems.”
Norma and Arthur Lewis are an average couple, with the same concerns and aspirations as anyone. Says Kelly, “The idea is that the people faced with this fate-altering dilemma are just like you or me, our parents or neighbors. There is nothing fatally flawed about the Lewises, nor is there anything special about them. They’re good, hard-working, loving people who are raising a child, trying to get by, and living a little bit beyond their means—a situation as relevant today as it was when the story was written.”
As the story opens, Arthur receives the bitter news that he has been denied the promotion he was expecting, meaning that their bright young son will no longer be able to attend the area’s best school and Norma will have to forgo reconstructive surgery on a lifelong, painful injury. It’s at this vulnerable point that they receive a visit from Arlington Steward and his bizarre proposition, in the form of a modest wooden box with a red button.
What Steward offers them, says Kelly, “is the possibility of an escape.” In a larger sense, the director notes, “What fascinates me is the complexity of the instant-gratification, push-button society we live in today, with our handheld devices, TV remotes, computers, and all the ways in which we effortlessly solve our problems or meet our needs, large and small. We toss off messages without much thought to the consequences or ramifications. It was a little different 30 years ago, when the story is set, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to keep it in the 1970s, when the story was first published. Pushing a button was a more deliberate act back then. For Norma and Arthur, it could be the most deliberate act of their lives.”
It’s a theme James Marsden immediately picked up on, commenting, “We live in a world where we can achieve almost anything with the press of a button. And I know it’s supposed to be making our lives easier, but something tells me we may be paying a higher price for it in the long run.” Marsden, who stars as young husband and father Arthur Lewis, also sees their intimate story having larger implications. “It’s a story about one couple’s experience but it could have a societal reach.”
Or, it could possibly reach far beyond than that…
Another reason Kelly timed “The Box” to 1976 was to tie it to a milestone human achievement that year: NASA’s landing of the first robotic research unit on Mars, the Viking Mission. “Maybe our landing on Mars was a significant enough accomplishment that some greater intelligence ‘out there’ decided it was now worth taking our measure as a species. Embedding our story into this historic setting introduces the possibility that there could be forces at work behind the Lewis’ morality test that are beyond anything they can imagine—and that we can only speculate about,” he suggests.
This, in turn, raises deeper questions about who, or what, is Arlington Steward.
“‘The Box’ isn’t big on violence or gore; it’s more of a thriller in the retro style of the movies I grew up on as a kid, and that kept me on the edge of my seat,” says Kelly.
Producer Dan Lin says, “It’s scary on a visceral level, because this family is being pursued by a mysterious man who seems to be watching their every move, but it’s also scary on a psychological level because of the provocative issues it raises. To what end will you go to save your family? How well do you know the people around you? How well do you know your own family, your husband, your wife? As a fan of ‘Donnie Darko,’ I knew Richard wouldn’t make a typical couple-in-jeopardy scenario; he would find a way to expand and elevate it with his own unique style and point of view.”
“What I love about Richard’s work is that he asks the questions you don’t ask yourself because you’re afraid of the answers,” notes Diaz. “He knows a lot about human nature and the lies we all tell ourselves.”
“His is a mind that thinks outside the box, if you’ll forgive the expression,” offers Frank Langella, who stars as the enigmatic Steward. “The story has a delicious premise with a ‘what if’ factor that I like very much. To borrow one of Steward’s lines from the film, when someone says, ‘This is all so mysterious,’ he responds, ‘Well, I like mystery. Don’t you?’”
Like their previous work, McKittrick acknowledges, “There are some things left intentionally unanswered, open to interpretation. It’s an intriguing idea that Matheson introduced and we’ve hopefully made that into an elegant and scary tale that will take audiences into unknown territory.”
Ultimately, Kelly believes, “It’s about responsibility. What would you sacrifice for your loved ones and what responsibility are you willing to take for your actions? What does it mean to be responsible for another human being and what are the parameters—where does it begin and where does it end? I like to think that I wouldn’t push the button but I don’t know. Maybe I already have. Maybe we all have.
“Richard Matheson’s story stirred my imagination and set my mind abuzz with the kinds of questions we’ve all pondered at one time or another,” he continues. “My intention with ‘The Box’ is to put audiences into Norma’s and Arthur’s shoes, so they can ask themselves, ‘What would I do?’”
“We just want this to go away. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
In developing the short story into a feature film, Kelly needed to expand the characters of Norma and Arthur Lewis and personalize them in a way that would make their crisis of conscience really hit home. And home is exactly where he went for inspiration. “It was important that Norma and Arthur are decent, likeable, honest people, the kind of people audiences can identify with. That being pretty much the definition of my own parents, it seemed natural to integrate parts of their lives into the characters.”
Kelly’s father was an engineer at NASA Langley for 15 years, and, like the Lewises, the family lived in Richmond. His mother was a victim of medical malpractice resulting in the kind of injury that Norma copes with in the film. But beyond these specific details, the most important thing Kelly drew from his parents’ life and gave to Arthur and Norma was the quality and depth of their relationship.
The Lewis’ love story is an essential ingredient in “The Box,” and is severely tested. “You have to believe in their love and their marriage or everything else is ornamental,” states Marsden. “At the heart of the movie is the relationship between Norma and Arthur, and the roller coaster ride they go through together. Everything that happens to them, however difficult, brings them closer together.”
Kelly’s assertion is that, if the box is indeed some kind of morality test, it would be best administered to people least likely to fall prey to it. Offering this choice to the obviously greedy or amoral would serve no purpose; their response would be predictable and immediate. “To prove that anyone, given the right circumstances, can be tempted by such an offer is likely part of Steward’s agenda.”
Speaking from Norma’s perspective, Cameron Diaz explains, “Pushing the button is not a decision she takes lightly but, at the moment it happens, after so much intense thought, it’s like something just comes over her. I think we’ve all been in situations where we know the consequences of an action but hope desperately that somehow it’s not going to happen—that we can ignore it or take it back if we have to, that we can say, ‘No, nevermind, I was just kidding.’ It doesn’t necessarily have to be a life-or-death situation. There are so many examples in our daily lives when we take the easy way out if we think we can get away with it. It comes down to the difference between living consciously or not, and that, to me, is even more relevant than the big question about whether or not you would push the button. Look at all the little buttons you are offered every day.
“What I like about this story is that the consequences are immediate and in-your-face, as if to say, ‘You did this and now you must deal with the responsibility,’” Diaz continues. The bottom line, she cautions, is “Nothing is free.”
Says McKittrick, “Cameron brought a tremendous amount of thought to the evolution of Norma’s storyline. We had some great discussions about redemption and self-sacrifice. The more she analyzed the story as it moved off the page, the more she brought to the shoot.”
For Norma’s husband, the box is more of a practical puzzle. “Arthur has a scientific mind,” says Marsden. “He takes a logical, tangible approach, takes the box apart and discovers there’s nothing inside of it. He figures it’s a trick, some kind of elaborate sales pitch, and doesn’t really take it seriously. How would anyone even know if they pushed the button or not? That all changes, though, when the button is pushed, and he sees everything turned upside down in front of him.”
“James brought a lot of charm and goodwill to his character and his chemistry with Cameron was fantastic,” says Kelly. “He also understood the depth of Arthur’s disappointment at not getting into the astronaut training program. He really got how that state of mind would affect the quandary they were faced with at home.”
But the real catalyst of their upheaval and soul-searching is Arlington Steward, a well-mannered and impeccably dressed gentleman of unknown origin and unknown motivation, who appears out of the blue one day to offer them the proverbial deal of a lifetime.
“Exactly who he is, and what he is doing, is open to debate,” Kelly concedes, jokingly adding, “You might think of him as a kind of interstellar insurance adjustor or maybe a tax auditor. He’s powerful, but also, clearly, fallible. He has his own limitations.”