Se7en has returned to theaters this week with a new 4K remaster and that means we'll soon be forced to relive those all too familiar cries of "What's in the box?" again.
As we're sure you're aware by now - the movie was released in 1995, after all - the crime drama ended with Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) and Detective Lieutenant William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) being led to a remote location by serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey).
To complete his twisted plan, Doe is revealed to have murdered and beheaded Mills' pregnant wife, placing her head inside the aforementioned box. With that, the grief-stricken cop guns the killer - "envy" - down, becoming "wrath" in the process.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Se7en director David Fincher revealed what was really in the box by debunking the long-held belief that it was a prosthetic replica of Gwyneth Paltrow's head.
"It's entirely ridiculous," he told the site. "I think we had a seven- or eight-pound shot bag. We had done the research to figure out, if Gwyneth Paltrow's body mass index was X, what portion of that would be attributable to her head. And so we had an idea of what that would weigh, and I think there was a weight in it."
The filmmaker continued, "And we did put a wig in there, so that when Morgan rips the box open if there were some of this tape that was used to seal the box - I think it was a shot bag and a wig, and I think the wig had a little bit of blood in it, so some of the hair would stick together."
"Remember, I think Morgan opened 16 or 17 of those things. But as I always say, you don't need to see what's in the box if you have Morgan Freeman," Fincher concluded.
Pitt has previously said that he pushed for both that scene, and the death of Doe at Mills' hand, to remain in the film whatever happened (given how dark the ending is, studio executives did indeed attempt to step in and give Se7en a "happy" ending).
"I got in my contract when I did Seven, having had a bad experience on a movie before where they edited out scenes I thought were vital," he recalled. "In Seven I put it in my contract: 'The wife's head stays in the box. And the character kills John Doe.' I got both in my contract."
"So sure enough, when it comes time, they come and they go, 'You know, he'd be much more heroic if he didn't.' And you go, 'Yeah, he would. But he's not.' And then: 'It's too much with the wife. What if we put the dogs' heads in? It should be the dogs' heads.' Nope," Pitt added.
Se7en is now playing in theaters.