Major spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the film.
Don’t Look Up stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence reflected on the new Netflix film’s bland ending.
The apocalypse film sees a pair of astronomers who desperately attempt to warn the world about a planet-killing comet heading directly towards Earth. In the end, the efforts to destroy the comet fails, hitting the Earth with only a few wealthy individuals escaping in a spaceship to the nearest Earth-like planet.
DiCaprio told The Los Angeles Times, “The end of this movie gets really dark, and had it not had that tonal shift, I don’t think we would have been as excited as we were to do it. You can never tell what a movie is going to do culturally, but the end of this film is really a smack in the face.”
The film’s conclusion also sees their characters poignantly spend their final moments together with loved ones over dinner, something that drew DiCaprio to the project.
“That’s what I loved about the ending, because I felt like that’s ultimately how I would respond,” the star continued. “We’re a communal species, and I would want to be around people I love and ignore the impending Armageddon. That dinner table scene is really what clinched it for me.”
Don’t Look Up is available on Netflix.