Children of Men Screenwriter Talks Unused Backstory, Legacy of Alfonso Cuarón's Dystopian Masterpiece (2025)

In a time of rampant xenophobia, economic instability, devastating climate disasters, ever-mutating viruses, and a general feeling of hopelessness throughout the globe, Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (the director's follow-up toHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)feels more relevant than ever before. In the words of Mark Fergus — one of the project's five credited, Oscar-nominated screenwriters, who recently spoke with SYFY WIRE about the film—"It’s taken a couple of decades for the movie to fully be understood."

Based on the 1992 novel of the same name by author P.D. James, the 2006 film (now available to own from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment) imagines a not-too-distant dystopian future where humans have mysteriously lost the ability to procreate. With no new generation to carry on the torch and inspire hope, civilization has begun to slowly eat itself alive.The only stable nation left standing is the United Kingdom, which stays afloat by heavily suppressing rebellious dissent, while scapegoating immigrant refugees (known as "Sojourners" in the book and "Fugees" in the film).

"The world is starting to catch up to that," adds Fergus, whose other credits include the first Iron Man movieand . "We're heading for some kind of fulcrum moment where it's all gonna change. It feels like we’re heading for an abyss ... The movie tapped into that long before people were as uncomfortable as they feel today."

Children of Men screenwriter talks film's relevance almost 20 years later

The billion-dollar question is what catastrophe (or set of catastrophes) will end up being humanity's ultimate undoing? Climate change? Nuclear war? Disease? A meteor from the darkest regions of outer space? Take your pick.Children of Menworks so well because its gritty vision of a slow-burning apocalypse drills down to the very core of what extinction means for us as a species, especially if we continue on the current self-made decline we've made for ourselves.

"The infertility is just one version of disaster," Fergus explains. "There's many versions, but it feels almost like a metaphor. Insert whatever fear you want to about the future of humanity, and it works on that level."

He continues: "I find that this movie has really touched people in a deep way [to the point where] they keep talking about it. It is very accessible, but it's not your typical movie experience in terms of popcorn fun, light and jolly. It gets under the skin.The first time I saw it at the Writers' Guild, nobody was speaking after. They were all walking around the lobby kind of shell-shocked. And I was like, ‘Oh, f***, that’s awesome. Nobody knows what to say.’ I took that as a really powerful sign that they were still trying to process it.That was a really cool way to experience the first effect of that film on an audience."

At the end of the day, however, Fergus seesChildren of Mennot as some nihilistic portent of things to come, but as an optimistic fable, the lesson being that you've "got to find the hope in all the darkness," emphasizes the screenwriter. "Because otherwise, it's very hard to get up in the morning. If we act with some sense of purpose or we just get up and refuse to submit to darkness, then we have a chance. We'll find a path, or we will die trying.That is really what the movie is ultimately about ... It's an incredibly hopeful movie."

Why did humans become infertile in Children of Men?

While the film's crucial plot point is never fully explained, Fergus and his longtime writing partner, Hawk Ostby, did write "a lot of backstory" in their final draft, which convinced Cuarón to sign on as director in the first place. This backstory didn't just coverhumanity's inability to make babies, but also the life of Baby Diego and the Ark of the Arts.Most, if not all, of their exposition building out the world gradually fell bywayside in subsequent versions written by David Arata,Timothy J. Sexton, and even Cuarón himself. "Maybe we'll use it someday," teases Fergus. "My cheesy explanation was always, 'When mankind shows that it's worthy of being saved, it will get a chance to save itself.' But we have to earn it in a microcosm way. Self-sacrifice is the thing that makes us sacred."

That noble sacrifice is, of course, made by Theo (Clive Owen), a jaded and alcoholic bureaucrat inspired by three fictional greats: Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities), Rick Blaine (Casablanca), and Rick Deckard (Blade Runner). He's suddenlyimbued with a new sense of purpose when the woman he once loved (Julianne Moore) asks for his help in escorting the only pregnant woman on Earth to a group of scientists who might be able to save the species.

Ironically, humanity's only hope at survival rests on the shoulders of a youngrefugee named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), the very type of person the government would immediately arrest and send to a concentration camp."I don't know which writer did what after us, but ... they really focused on the Fugee element," Fergus notes, revealing that Moore's character was the original savior of mankind, like she is in the book. "It becomes, [almost] biblical in a way, that the people who end up saving the world are the ones you're most cruel to."

Fergus also creditsCuarón and the other writers with changing his and Ostby's fugitive "road trip" through the British countryside premise to the intense third act, in which Theo and Kee navigate the perils of the Bexhill camp (a brilliant and harrowing evolution of the abrasive documentary-style approach Steven Spielberg brought toSaving Private Ryan nearly a decade before)."It was the compressing of the danger into this gauntlet you had to get through," Fergus says. "I love the way he compressed everything through that strainer. You have to go through hell, this camp, in order to get to the boat and maybe freedom. That led to all the incredible cinematic sequences that he designed.

"I love the choices that happened after our involvement ended. They just took the foundational stuff and then ran with it in such a brilliant way," he adds. "As much as people bitch about Hollywood, sometimes it goes right. A bunch of writers, a great novel, a great director — it all comes together and is way more than the sum of its parts. That can happen sometimes. It’s kind of miraculous, and it may never happen again in your career, but this is when the system worked really well. Coming off Harry Potter, Alfonso kind of hadfree reign and could choose whatever he wanted to do next ... I can't imagine it being a better film than the one he made. It's impossible to think of this being some other version that nails it more than he nailed it."

The legacy ofChildren of Men

Children of Men opened in theaters on Christmas Day 2006 in the United States to critical acclaim and a not-so-great box office return (just over $69 million worldwide against a production budget of $76 million). Nevertheless, it was — and still is — considered among the best films released that year and bagged three Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing. In the years since, Fergus has noticed new creators, particularly the ones behind HBO's Last of Usseries adaptation, paying homage to the film.

"As I was watching, I was like, ‘Okay, these guys like Children of Men,'" he remembers. "Even the story structure and the setup of, 'They're the resistance, they’re the good guys, but they're not really good; they do horrible things in order to do good.' So I did sense quite a lot of story similarities in a good way. We riffed on classic Hollywood, they're riffing on us.I thought it was cool."

Despite all that, Fergus humbly downplays his and Ostby's contribution in favor of championing the person who came up with the original story, without which there would be no movie.

"The person I feel is neglected all the time is P.D. James," concludes the screenwriter. "This movie is her book. It’s different in many ways, but the [way the] movie moves you is all in her book. I like to say she’s the mother of this project. It's a story about motherhood, and she really is the mother of this entire project ... [She's the] one who birthed this entire story and made us all feel so much that made us want to make this movie, or want to be part of it. That's a really big deal to me, that she doesn't get forgotten."

Children of Men is now available to own from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.