How Does Drop End? Director Christopher Landon Says the Ending "Changed Dramatically"
Director Christopher Landon upped the ante for Drop's ending.
This story contains major spoilers for the end of Drop.
Looking for a date movie about the world's worst first date? Look no further than Blumhouse's new thriller Drop, which is now in theaters (get tickets). Drop stars Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) as Violet and Brandon Sklenar (1923) as Henry, two lonely souls who connect on a dating app.
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The pair test the waters for a few weeks until they decide to meet for dinner. Unfortunately, everything goes wrong when Violet starts getting threatening messages DigiDropped (think AirDrop) to her phone. The texter with the handle "Let's Play" demands that she kill her date, or else they’ll kill her son, who is back at home with her sister. What ensues is a rapidly escalating game of digital cat and mouse with fatal consequences.
Drop's edge-of-your-seat, action-packed finale
After enduring a crazed dinner during which Violet has to keep secret from Henry what she's being commanded to do to him, she finally figures out her anonymous torturer's identity: Richard (Reed Diamond), the nervous older guy on a blind date who was nice to her at the bar.
When Henry has to take a call, she confronts Richard at his table, where they engage in a battle of wits as he finally explains why he targeted her as he calmly eats panna cotta. It turns out Henry has been working with the FBI to uncover a conspiracy in the Mayor's office. And Richard and his people want to silence him before he can deliver evidence and act as a witness.
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But Violet turns the night on Richard when she reveals that she actually laced his dessert with the poison intended for Henry. Shocked, Richard gets violent; he pulls a gun and then a knife, and all hell breaks loose in the restaurant. People get hurt, including the bartender and Henry, who returns to the chaos and takes a bullet meant for Violet.
In a harrowing scene, a gunshot to the window ends up blowing Richard outside, and drags Violet out too from the blast suction. She dangles from the edge of the window from a table cloth and is just about to fall to her death before she's dragged back inside by Henry.
Violet then races home to stop Richard's hired thug from killing her sister (Violett Beane) and her young son, Toby. She arrives and experiences a sickening full0circle moment as she's violently attacked and thrown around her home, much like she experienced with her abusive ex-husband. As she crawls for her life (again), this time she's got her son on her side and he saves the day by delivering her the hit man's dropped gun on his RC truck (an inside joke with Toby). She shoots the killer and for a moment sees her ex's face, but this time, it's a very different outcome.
Maybe a day or two later, Violet goes to the hospital to visit Henry and her sister (who was also shot by the hit man). Henry and Violet decide to start fresh over much more laid back milkshakes and talk to one another without the crazed circumstances of their first date.
Drop's real-life inspiration and original ending
While Drop primarily unfolds within the claustrophobic constraints of the fine-dining restaurant Palate, the story returns to the film's other primary set, Violet's home, for her climactic confrontation.
For context, the premise of the film is based on an actual AirDrop experience that Platinum Dunes producer Cameron Fuller and his friend, actor Sam Lerner, had while on vacation. Their phones blew up with anonymous, increasingly threatening drop messages that stopped, giving them no information about who or why they were targeted. Screenwriters Jillian Jacobs and Christopher Roach turned their experience into a worst-case scenario version for Drop.
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When NBC Insider asked Landon if the ending was always what we see in the finished film, he revealed that it had "changed dramatically" once he came aboard.
"When I read the script, it was a first draft," Landon said. "I was really fortunate that I got to work with the writers and really collaborate on the script with them. The movie originally ended in the restaurant and so that was one of the [changed] ideas that I brought to the table."
Does Drop have an end-credits scenes?
It does not. The credits roll with a thematically appropriate song entitled, "Healing."
How can you watch Drop?
Drop is now playing exclusively in theaters. Click here for tickets!
