Have you ever wondered, after a certain movie finished, what could have gone down if just a few things were changed? Some may say that they never thought about this because they believe that it would be probably worse with a different ending and that their favorite film is a perfectly imagined masterpiece which needs no messing with. But there is always the, what if…?
Believe it or not movies, just like everything else, are sometimes in dire need of some editing and interference. Those changes might be avoiding some characters death, different ending line or place, different catch phrase or God knows what else, and thanks to that we bring you movies that were supposed to end totally different until someone had that “wait a minute…” moment.
The ending scene of this masterpiece had that famous moment when Dr. Strangelove somehow manages to walk away as the Doomsday Machine detonates nuclear bombs all over the world. Well, what if we told you that that wasn’t the original ending. The first ending was supposed to have a pie-fight breakout between senior politicians, including the President and Russian Ambassador who should have hit each other face with a pie. Thanks to director Stanley Kubrick and his thoughts that it was “farce and not consistent with the satiric tone of the rest of the film” we all enjoyed the proper ending everyone knows by now.
The original ending of this classic thriller show the main character Dan (Michael Douglas) who was charged with murder, and in a voicemail message, Alex (Glen Close) confesses and then commits suicide. This sort of ending didn’t take up well with the audience, and after some convincing Glen Close, they filmed the well-known bathtub shooting scene instead. But there is one interesting thing regarding this movie, the first ending was kept for Japanese audience for some reason.
#3 The Shining
This cult horror is very famous, and no one can actually say they didn’t see it. There is, though, something you didn’t know about this movie and that is the fact that Stanley Kubrick had a different ending for this film. It was supposed to end with a hospital scene where Danny and Wendy survived, followed by a scene with the Overlook Hotel manager saying they didn’t find any evidence of paranormal activity. But then, as the manager leaves, he gives Danny the yellow ball that he followed to room 237. Kubrick made a decision here, and he said that this scene is “unnecessary” after which he ordered projectionists cut it from the film and send it like that to the Warner Bros.
#4 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
At the ending of this cult western, you saw Butch and Sundance walk out guns blazing, and they were shot at as well, but the movie ended leaving a huge mystery of what exactly happened to the famous pair. The original ending actually showed the horrible death of Paul Newman and Robert Redford bringing the biggest onscreen bromance to an end.
This movie, as most of you probably know was about coming-of-age, and at its end, you could saw the group smoking on the end of the football field, but according to The Daily Beast, a character that Matthew McConaughey played – Wooderson – wasn’t supposed to be in that scene. He was put in only because the two of the actors – Shawn Andrews (Pickford) and Jason London (Floyd) couldn’t stand each other.
#6 Alien
You are all, definitely, familiar with this movie and everyone know how it ended – Ripley beats the xenomorph, records the captain’s log, grabs Jones, the cat and goes into hypersleep. Ridley Scott had a whole different idea of ending this movie, and it was supposed to be more horrifying than the actual one. Ridley pitched this idea to the executives – “I thought that the alien should come in, and Ripley harpoons it, and it makes no difference, so it slams through her mask and rips her head off,” after which the execs threaten to fire him. He, of course, changed it.
#7 Se7en
This movie ending was almost ruined by the soft studio people who didn’t want to put the human-head-in-a-cardboard-box idea. They tried to push for the use of the head of a family dog instead, but after Brad Pitt refused and threatened to leave the movie if they didn’t use Gwyneth’s head, they allowed it and with it gave us a great ending of a fantastic film.
#8 Rocky
You probably didn’t know but in Stallone’s original screenplay Rocky actually took the money and threw the match against Apollo Creed. He used the money to help Adrian open a pet shop. Thankfully this horrible ending was avoided by some excellent editing. Thank you whoever did this!
#9 Star Wars: Return of The Jedi
The first version of this cult movie had a somewhat different idea of how the film would resolve. Apparently, the first script saw the death of Han Solo during a raid on an Imperial base, but thanks to producer Gary Kurtz and his concern on how Han’s death would impact merchandising he refused to kill any of the main characters. That was basically the last time producer and director worked together.
