The End Of Oak Street Ending's Time Travel Mechanics & Surviving Characters Explained (Exclusive)

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for The End of Oak Street!EXCLUSIVE: David Robert Mitchell's The End of Oak Street sent its characters through time, and the writer/director is explaining who comes out alive.

The new sci-fi adventure thriller centers on the Platt family as their lives are thrown into a fight for survival when their eponymous suburban street is suddenly transported to a prehistoric region full of dangerous creatures. As they face off against a variety of threats, the family also find themselves confronting some of their personal demons and growing closer, particularly Anne Hathaway's Denise and Ewan McGregor's Greg.

This all builds up to The End of Oak Street's high-stakes climax, in which the family attempt to jump through one of the wormholes that frequently appears at a neighbor's house in order to hopefully venture to safety. Along the way, Greg sacrifices himself in order to allow the group to escape, with everyone else successfully making it and arriving back in their home time, 20 minutes before the first big wormhole took the town into the past. Denise and her kids, Christian Convery's Brian and Maisy Stella's Audrey, also successfully get their neighbors to evacuate, while finding a way to prevent a still-alive Greg from also being pulled back in time.

Ahead of the film's release, ScreenRant's Tatiana Hullender interviewed J.J. Abrams and David Robert Mitchell to discuss The End of Oak Street. When asked about developing the film's happier ending for the Platt family, and whether there were other plans for who survived and who didn't, Mitchell confirmed that "everything was debated" among the creative team, but that part of the reason for everyone's escape was a desire to tap into the theme of "the safety of family, of love, and of reconnection":

David Robert Mitchell: Everything was debated, but really, what was important to us was that when we go through this journey, we have these moments of suspense. There are moments of danger, there are moments of terror, but then there's also joy and humor. The audience, along with the family, go through this ride and these sometimes darker experiences. It's really about being able to take the audience to these darker places, but know that we're ultimately [within] the safety of a movie.

When asked about the time travel at the heart of the film's mystery, the writer/director did confirm that "I have the mechanics" for how it works in The End of Oak Street, though teased that the explanation is not in the movie, and could potentially lead to something in the future. Abrams concluded by praising the sci-fi movie's ending as being "my favorite kind" with just how much there is unanswered regarding its time travel:

J.J. Abrams: David was the one who brought up the idea, so any ideas for the Platt family and beyond would have to come from this guy. I will say that the ending went through a few different iterations, but every time it felt like it was the proper end of this story, and that could be it. But it also undeniably felt like, "Yeah. But then what happens?" That's my favorite kind of ending, and I feel like our job is just to make a movie right now that is worth people's time. And I think Dave has done that.

Though Abrams acknowledges that The End of Oak Street's ending generally offers closure for the Platt family, there are still indeed plenty of questions left unanswered that could be explored in a follow-up. For starters, it's still unclear as to how or why the tremors that brought about the time-traveling wormholes were occurring, with the film having made allusions to increased solar flare activity, but never outright confirming this to have been the case.

Additionally, though Denise and her kids make it back in time to save their neighbors and Greg, the barbecue at the end of The End of Oak Street saw Jordan Alexa Davis' Jeannette arrive with not only her now-alive family, but also a second version of herself. Beyond being a humorous closure to the film, it more importantly raises the question as to whether there were versions of Denise, Brian and Audrey who still went back in time, much in the way Michael J. Fox's Marty only slightly changed his present at the end of the first Back to the Future.

With Mitchell currently in the process of making his first-ever sequel with They Follow, there is certainly a chance that he could further build on the time travel mystery of The End of Oak Street with a future installment. Additionally, while it's not expected to dethrone Spider-Man: Brand New Day in its opening box office weekend, the strong reviews could give it a solid boost to earn enough for Abrams and Warner Bros. to be inspired to begin development on a follow-up.