Today’s mail brings a copy of Button, Button: Uncanny Stories, a collection by Richard Matheson. The world knows Matheson best for his movie-spawning novels I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man, and What Dreams May Come, and for his script for Duel, which first brought Steven Spielberg to prominence, and for his script for the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” But it is his short stories, usually with twist endings, which I find the most memorable and chilling.

The reason this collection has been reissued is that the title story is being made into the movie The Box, directed by Richard Kelly and starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden. I sat down and reread the story this afternoon, and suddenly remembered the TV adaptation done of it for the 1980s’ incarnation of The Twilight Zone. I had forgotten that the two versions use completely different twist endings, and I wondered … which one will the movie use? Or will there be yet a third ending? I pulled out my DVD boxed set to compare the two.

For those who aren’t familiar with either of the versions, the (non-spoiler) premise for the plot is as follows.

A couple is given a small wooden box with a button mounted on one side. “If you push the button,” the couple is told, “somewhere in the world, someone you don’t know will die.” But if they do push it, they’ll receive $50,000. Most of the story is taken up by the husband and wife debating whether they should or shouldn’t push that button.

The short-story and TV versions match up fairly closely so far, with a few changes that don’t really affect the kicker of the story. Thanks to inflation, the $50,000 bounty from the 1970 short story was raised to $200,000 for the 1986 episode. Other changes altered the dynamics of the couple. The husband, ethical in Richard Matheson’s short story, has become the stuttering and ineffectual Brad Davis in Logan Swanson’s adaptation. And the wife, rather than loving but tempted, is played as a mean and embittered Mare Winningham.

But the endings are where the two versions veer wildly apart.

The button ends up getting pushed both in the original short story and in the adaptation, but—

In the original short story, once the button is pushed, the switcheroo is that the husband dies in an accident, causing the wife to protest as she receives his insurance as her reward:

“You said I wouldn’t know the one that died!”

“My dear lady,” Mr. Steward said, “do you really think you knew your husband?”

In the Twilight Zone adaptation, however, both members of the couple survive the pushing of the button, and when the mysterious stranger arrives to deliver a suitcase full of cash and to pick up the box, the wife asks—

“So what happens now?”

“Why … You spend the money. And I hope you enjoy it. The button unit will be reprogrammed and offered to someone else with the same terms and conditions.”

“Someone else?”

“Yes. I can assure you it will be offered to someone whom you don’t know.

—with the twist being that they will soon themselves be killed by the next greedy person down the line.

So—do you think Hollywood will use either of these twist endings? Or will they come up with a third?

And aside from that—how do you turn a tight 11-page short story or 18-minute teleplay into a full-length movie without destroying it?