Netflix’s new animated feature The Twits arrives with a different finish than Roald Dahl wrote, as director Phil Johnston says he could not end a family film with the titular couple dying after a prank goes wrong. Speaking about the change, he explained that once the screenplay took shape, the story needed to land on a choice rooted in empathy rather than the book’s macabre comeuppance. In the film, orphan Beesha ultimately refuses to let the villains perish, a pivot Johnston frames as thematically consistent with making kindness feel active on screen.
Dahl’s 1980 novel closes with a famously bleak gag: the monkeys and birds glue the Twits’ furniture to the ceiling, tricking them into standing on their heads until they shrink into nothing. That ending has long defined the story’s sting, and the decision to replace it sets the adaptation apart not only in plot but in tone. Johnston has argued the book’s episodic structure and cruelty posed narrative hurdles, leading the team toward a film “inspired by” the original while still playing with gross-out humor and moral fables.
Beyond the finale, the movie moves the action to a U.S. setting and layers in new elements, including Beesha and Bubsy, local politics, and a toe-kissing toad that flips a character’s nature. Early reactions highlight how these additions reshape Dahl’s directness; some critics see a lively, timely satire, while others view the Americanization and message-forward approach as a departure from the author’s bracing tone. The film debuted on Netflix on October 17, 2025.
Johnston has also emphasized process: extending a very short book into a feature required building a throughline, writing songs, and calibrating the grotesque comedy for a broad family audience. He has said the new ending serves that aim without erasing the story’s mischievous spirit, even as it reframes the morality play from punitive justice to deliberate mercy.
