American Beauty
At the end of the movie, Lester Burnham is killed by his secretly-gay, tough-guy neighbor. However, in the original script (which is much longer) Lester’s daughter and her boyfriend Ricky are tried and convicted of the crime. Colonel Fitts frames them once he finds the videotape of them talking about taking down Lester and takes it to the authorities.
Clerks
The original ending was much darker with Dante getting shot and killed by a robber. Kevin Smith said he ended it that way because he didn’t know how to end it otherwise, but when his two mentors informed him that the ending was just a giant downer, he decided to cut it.
Watch the original ending HERE.
Pretty Woman
The original ending had Vivian receive her envelope of cash as per the original agreement. No one falls in love, there’s no fire escape-climbing, and Vivian ends up back on the streets. “It was a really dark and depressing, horrible, terrible story about two horrible people,” Julia Roberts said.
28 Days Later
Initially, the horror film ended with Jim getting shot in the stomach and slowly dying. Selena and Hannah then venture off into the apocalypse to fight for survival. Test audiences hated the bleak ending, and we were given a much more optimistic one with Jim surviving his wounds and the infected seen dying of starvation.
Watch the alternative ending HERE.
Little Shop of Horrors
The comedy musical’s original ending was a 23-minute finale that cost $5 million to make. The third act featured Audrey Jr. chomping down on her owner and wreaking plant havoc on the world. That conclusion was replaced with the happy ending of Seymour exterminating the plant and living happily ever after.
Watch the original ending HERE.
Seven
Studio execs wanted to soften the blow by using the head of a beloved family dog instead. But Brad Pitt stuck to his guns and said it was Gwyneth’s head or no head — and no film — at all.
Interstellar
Jonathan Nolan explained that initially, the worm hole was going to collapse as Cooper tried to send the data back, killing him. It then would’ve been up to the audience to decide whether or not the information made it and if mankind would’ve survived or starved.
Heathers
Heathers had three dark alternative endings. 1) The school actually blows up, and the movie ends with prom in heaven. 2) At real prom, the kids all enjoy blue drinks from the punchbowl — the same blue stuff that killed Heather Chandler. 3) Veronica asks Martha Dumptruck if she wants to hang out and rent a movie. Martha responds by stabbing Veronica in the stomach and calling her Heather. As she bleeds out, Veronica gasps, “My name’s not Heather, you bitch!”
I Am Legend
The original ending was a tad closer to the book. The darkseekers break into Dr. Neville’s lab to save the female he’s been experimenting on. Neville gives her back and realizes that the infected just see him as a murderer of their kind: HE is the monster. Instead, we saw the more theatrical ending with Neville heroically blowing himself up to save Anna and Ethan.
Watch the original ending HERE.
Scott Pilgrim VS. The World
Originally, Scott chooses to be with Knives Chau instead of his dream girl Ramona Flowers. However, preview audiences felt gypped that he had gone through all seven evil exes for nothing. Director Edgar Wright realized that “the ending wasn’t quite as satisfying as it should be”, and reshot it.
Watch the alternative ending HERE.
Final Destination
The first ending featured Alex being electrocuted, and fast-forwarding to Clear giving birth to their baby nine months later. Audiences hated it. So, production made a new ending with Alex being decapitated, and minimizing the love interest between Clear and Alex. Audiences hated it again. So, the third and final ending was filmed where death essentially “skips” Alex.
Watch the original ending HERE.
Blade Runner
Test audiences didn’t like the original nihilistic ending alluding that Rick Deckard is actually a replicant. So, some serious editing took place, and a “happy ending” was created that even had a cheery voiceover informing us that Rachel has a special lengthened lifespan. Many fans prefer the ending that Ridley Scott originally intended.
Watch the original ending HERE.
National Lampoon’s Vacation
Test audiences hated the original ending. “It bombed so badly that the audience was laughing for eighty minutes and then just stopped cold.” The ending? Clark takes his family to Walley’s home and forces him to entertain his family – at gunpoint.”
Get Out
After Chris escapes his “girlfriend’s” house, laying next to the dead bodies in the street, he hears police sirens. Luckily, it turns out to be his buddy Rod. Originally though, the police sirens were actual police and Chris ends up in prison since all of the evidence burned down with the house. Director Jordan Peele ended up changing it though, as we were able to play out that entire ending in our heads the moment we saw the police sirens.
Watch the alternate ending HERE.
Fatal Attraction
The original ending involved unstable mistress Alex taking her own life to frame Dan for the incident. However, she also gives Dan’s wife, Beth, evidence that ultimately exonerates him from the crime. Test audiences didn’t love this idea. So instead, viewers got to enjoy Dan’s scorned wife, Beth, putting her husband’s mistress in the ground.
Watch the original ending HERE.
The Descent
Oftentimes countries receive different versions of a film, not just because of language barriers, but because of cultural differences. British test audiences enjoyed the bleak ending where Sarah escapes, only to wake up back in the cave, realizing she had only dreamt of escape as the crawlers close in on her. American audiences, however, did not enjoy that ending. So, production simply cut out the last 30 seconds revealing it was just a dream.
Watch the alternate ending HERE.
Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb
Kubrick’s classic ends with the iconic image of the mushroom cloud of an atomic event. But that wasn’t Kubrick’s original ending. Instead, everyone in the war room, including the POTUS got into a slapstick-style pie fight. Luckily, in the end Kubrick decided to cut it because “it was farce and not consistent with the satiric tone of the rest of the film.”
Rocky
Stallone’s original screenplay had Rocky accepting money to throw the fight against Apollo Creed—who would have been Jamaican, by the way. Rocky then uses the cash to help Adrian open a pet store.
The Butterfly Effect
In the director’s cut, a desperate Evan decides that the only way to prevent all the carnage his time trips have caused is to use a video of his birth to travel backward and strangle himself in the womb before he’s born.
Watch the alternate ending HERE.
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