Speak No Evil has climbed back to number one on Netflix’s UK film chart, almost two years after it left cinemas. James McAvoy’s remake of a 2022 Danish thriller earned nearly $77 million worldwide against a $15 million budget, and it is now reaching a bigger audience than it ever pulled in theaters.
That audience is falling for an ending its own creator has publicly rejected. Christian Tafdrup, the Danish writer-director who made the original film, says the rewritten finale strips out everything that made his version frightening in the first place.
A Slow Climb From Cinemas To Streaming’s Top Spot
The Express, which first reported the new chart placement, said the film went straight to number one after landing on Netflix UK this week. Universal released it in cinemas on September 13, 2024, produced by Jason Blum’s horror label, Blumhouse.
It did not flop. Speak No Evil earned close to $77 million worldwide on that $15 million budget, more than five times its cost, and helped push Blumhouse’s 2024 worldwide total past $150 million, according to a Collider report on the studio’s year. Rotten Tomatoes logged an 83% score from critics and 85% from audiences.
From there it moved, not to Netflix, but to Peacock. NBCUniversal’s own streaming service began streaming the film exclusively on December 6, 2024, roughly twelve weeks after its theatrical debut. Its arrival on Netflix’s UK chart this month marks a third home in under two years.
- $15 million production budget for the 2024 remake.
- $77 million worldwide box office, more than five times that budget.
- 83% Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score, with an 85% audience score.
- December 6, 2024: the date it began its exclusive US streaming run on Peacock.
The Express’s own review called it a “British Get Out” and named it the best film of 2024 in a five-star writeup. That is one critic’s read. The Rotten Tomatoes numbers back a warmer reception than that framing usually gets for a remake of a two-year-old foreign film still fresh in critics’ minds.
McAvoy Built Paddy Out Of A Live Controversy
McAvoy plays Paddy, the farmhouse host whose hospitality curdles into something darker across the film’s ninety minutes. Speaking to Empire’s podcast, he said he shaped the character around a real, ongoing cultural flashpoint.
“The thing I thought I could exploit in the character was, he thinks he’s a bit of a… West Country Andrew Tate,” McAvoy said, according to the interview. He described Paddy’s pitch to the visiting family plainly: “He’s like, ‘I’m going to teach you what it’s like to be a man again.'”
McAvoy was careful to draw a line between the character and the influencer. He added that Paddy carries “a sort of polite face on it that isn’t quite Andrew Tate,” pointing instead to touchstones like the Australian slang term “bogan” and Mark Rylance’s performance in the play Jerusalem. Later interviews reported that McAvoy pushed back on how widely the Tate comparison spread, saying his comments had been taken out of context. The tension between an authentic, dangerous inspiration and a performance built for a mainstream audience turns out to be a small preview of the bigger split the film would face.
The Danish Original Ends With Everyone Losing
Tafdrup’s 2022 version follows a Danish couple, Bjørn and Louise, who accept a weekend invitation from a Dutch couple, Patrick and Karin, after meeting them on holiday. The visit curdles the same way in both versions: strange hospitality, a mute child, mounting dread.
The two films part ways hardest at the finish. In Tafdrup’s original, Bjørn eventually discovers his hosts are serial killers who mutilate the children of the families they lure in, forcing them to pose as their own replacement child for the next set of victims. He finds their own captive boy drowned in the pool. The family tries to run. It does not work.
| Detail | 2022 Original (Denmark) | 2024 Remake (US/UK) |
|---|---|---|
| Director / writer | Christian Tafdrup, with Mads Tafdrup | James Watkins |
| Visiting family | Danish couple, Bjørn and Louise | American couple, Ben and Louise |
| Host family | Dutch couple, Patrick and Karin | British couple, Paddy and Ciara |
| Ending | Visiting couple killed; hosts continue their pattern | Visiting family fights back and escapes |
| Rotten Tomatoes audience score | 56% | 85% |
James Watkins, who wrote and directed the remake, gave the American family a way out. Ben and Louise Dalton fight back, and the film closes on survival rather than slaughter.
Tafdrup Says Hollywood Swapped Out The Nightmare
Tafdrup did not stay quiet about the change. Speaking on the Danish radio show Kulturen, he laid out exactly what he thought Watkins had done to his story.
I don’t know what it is about Americans, but they are brought up for a heroic tale, where the good must win over the bad, and this version of the film cultivates that.
Tafdrup, quoted via World of Reel, went further, calling the new ending “less dangerous” and more sanitized for American audiences. He said his own film left people “traumatised,” while he watched remake audiences leave the theater clapping. Of the happier resolution, he put it simply: “it is so deep in their culture that America must be able to handle it all.”
Audience Scores Reveal A 29-Point Divide
The numbers back up exactly what Tafdrup is describing. His original sits at just 56% with Rotten Tomatoes audiences, a genuinely mixed reaction to a film critics widely praised for its bleakness. The remake’s audience score sits at 85%, a 29-point jump for a story that is, structurally, the same setup with a softer landing.
Critics leaned closer to the original’s side of that gap than general audiences did. Coverage of the remake’s release noted several reviewers found the new ending diminished the material, even while the aggregate 83% critics’ score stayed solidly positive. The film that is topping Netflix’s UK chart this week is not the one that earned Tafdrup’s story its reputation as a modern classic among critics. It is the one built to send a mainstream audience home satisfied rather than shaken.
The Credits Still Point Back To Denmark
Whatever changed in the last act, the paperwork has not moved. The remake’s official credits list it as based on Speak No Evil by Christian Tafdrup and Mads Tafdrup, with Watkins credited solely for the screenplay and direction of the English-language version. Tafdrup gets the underlying story credit on a film now sitting at the top of a UK streaming chart he had no hand in reaching.
Nearly two years after its cinema run and roughly nineteen months after its Peacock exclusive began, Speak No Evil’s Netflix UK debut is the clearest sign yet that the story keeps finding new rooms to unsettle, even in the version its own creator says he barely recognizes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Speak No Evil Based on a True Story?
No. Speak No Evil is a work of fiction. The 2024 version is an English-language remake of Christian Tafdrup’s 2022 Danish film of the same name, and neither film is based on real crimes or real people.
How Long Was Speak No Evil in Theaters Before It Left for Streaming?
Universal kept it in theaters for roughly twelve weeks. It opened on September 13, 2024, and moved to its exclusive Peacock streaming premiere on December 6, 2024, before later reaching Netflix UK.
Did Christian Tafdrup Help Write the American Remake?
He holds the underlying story credit, since the remake is officially based on his and Mads Tafdrup’s original screenplay. James Watkins wrote and directed the 2024 version independently and has spoken publicly about why he changed the ending.
Who Plays Ant, the Mute Son in Speak No Evil?
Dan Hough plays Ant, the son of McAvoy’s character Paddy and Aisling Franciosi’s Ciara, in the 2024 remake. The character’s inability to speak is what eventually tips off the visiting family that something is wrong.
