Oh, “Passengers” was actually supposed to be MORE twisted, and that sure is something

If you saw Passengers, you know the big ~twist~. Even if you didn’t see Passengers, you probably know the big ~twist~ because as soon as the TWIST got out, everyone was like SHUT THE FRONT DOOR, WHAT?

The twist, as you know, is that Chris Pratt’s character, Jim, actually wakes up Jennifer Lawrence’s Aurora, basically dooming her to die well before they reach their destination! The promotion for the movie sure made it seem like some accident had happened that woke the two of them up, but nope. It was just Jim!

(In full disclosure, I saw Passengers and I didn’t think it was the worst movie ever made, okay? But then again, maybe I have a fondness for scifi B-movies, and that’s exactly what Passnegers was — even though it featured some A+ talent, and also robotic Michael Sheen.)

Anyhoo. In a new interview with Variety, Swedish director Ruben Östlund brings up Passengers, and the fact that at one point, he was determined to direct the movie. But — and this is a huge but — he had a much different plot twist in mind. Yes, Jim would still wake up Aurora, and they’d still be doomed to die together, but…

"There was one film I really wanted to do that has been made now. That was 'Passengers,'" Östlund explains. "But I wanted to change the setup of 'Passengers.'"

And just what did Östlund want to change it to? BUCKE UP FOR THIS:

"The main character is a guy who wakes up in one of those pods on a spaceship. I wanted to put his family in the other pods, his wife and kids. Then there’s this dilemma: He’s going to die on the ship because the travel takes 300 years. If he wakes up his kids, they will die on the spaceship and not on the planet they’re heading for; if he wakes up his wife, then the kids will not have a mother when they arrive."

Oh. That is…alarming. But continue, Östlund.

“So of course, you have to wake up another woman, because you don’t want to be alone. Then you can swipe on pictures to see the women, like Tinder. You have to decide on the pictures and pick someone. To bring things [like] that would be relevant in contemporary times. But when I pitched this to the producers, I think they got scared.”

We’re actually scared about that, too. Can you imagine THAT being the twist, instead of the ~twist~ we have now? Jim, clearly thinking of his family but also not wanting to be alone, just wakes up someone completely random!

Not cool, Jim. Not cool.