Stacy Conradt
The Quick 10: How 10 Iconic Movies Almost Ended
by Stacy Conradt - May 26, 2010 - 5:15 PM

q10

It’s hard to imagine that some of our favorite movies could have turned out entirely differently. Sometimes the directors simply changed their minds, and sometimes the test audience hated the original ending so much there was really no choice but to change it so theater-goers wouldn’t leave the movie feeling ripped off. Here’s the way 10 movies could have turned out.

1. Clerks originally ended 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 ridiculously depressing, he decided to end the movie just before the scene where Dante is killed. You can see the death scene on the DVD extras, though.

2. Dr. Strangelove. The ending to this one is so iconic it’s almost impossible to fathom it ending any other way. The ending that was used, of course, was Major T.J. “King” Kong riding a nuclear bomb like it’s a bucking bronco, followed by Dr. Strangelove miraculously walking just as the Doomsday Machine activates and detonates nuclear bombs across the world. But all of this could have been replaced with a massive fight at the Pentagon… a pie fight. Everyone in the war room, including the POTUS and the Russian Ambassador, cream each other in the face with pies like they’re slapstick vaudevillians. Stanley Kubrick ended up cutting the scene because he “decided it was farce and not consistent with the satiric tone of the rest of the film.” No kidding.

3. Thelma and Louise. Only a tiny tweak here, but a fairly significant one – the first ending showed Thelma and Louise’s car tumbling all the way to the canyon floor, no doubt getting pulverized in the process. As you probably know, the updated ending is a wee bit more hopeful – we see their car drive off the cliff, but we don’t actually know what happens. I suppose there’s the chance that there’s an awning halfway down the canyon that they bounce off of, cartoon-style. No?

4. I Am Legend. Also another hopeful ending here. At the end of the version that was released, Dr. Neville heroically blows himself and a bunch of Darkseekers up, saving Anna and Ethan, but giving them the cure before he goes. Critics didn’t care for the ending, but perhaps they would have preferred the one where the Darkseekers break into Neville’s lab because they’re looking for the female Darkseeker he has been experimenting on. Once Neville realizes this and gives the female back, the rest of the mob backs off and Neville realizes that the infected just see him as a murderer of their kind.

5. The Princess Diaries. Would you have been disappointed if you hadn’t’ seen the fabulous castle the new Princess Mia was headed off to live in? Garry Marshall’s granddaughter was. When he showed his five-year-old granddaughter the film, she was upset that it just ended with Mia agreeing to become a princess. The little girl really wanted to see the castle and the start of Mia’s fabulous new life, so Marshall convinced Disney to buy some footage of a European castle, which they digitally added the Genovian flag to. Marshall said it made his granddaughter much happier.

6. Fatal Attraction. Audiences were bored to tears with this original ending – Dan is charged with murder while an Alex voice-over confesses suicide. Bad audience reaction prompted a change to the ending we know now – the famous bathtub shooting. But Glenn Close hated this ending and fought hard against it, arguing that her character was more likely to self-destruct and commit suicide. She even had psychiatrists analyze Alex; they agreed. After three weeks of resisting, she gave in and filmed the ending that was released. The original ending was kept for the Japanese release of the film, however.

7. Terminator 2. The year is 2029, Sarah Connor is a happy grandmother, and her son John is a senator. Everyone lives happily ever after. That’s great and all, but it didn’t leave much room for sequels. The studio preferred dollar signs to happy endings. No surprise there, huh?

8. Little Shop of Horrors. The 1986 version of this movie-musical was supposed to end with Audrey II killing Audrey and Seymour and taking over New York City. That’s in keeping with the off-Broadway ending, which is what the movie was based on. It’s said that Frank Oz and most of the actors, including Rick Moranis, much prefer this ending.

9. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. This one got the Thelma and Louise treatment. Or rather, I suppose, Thelma got the Butch Cassidy treatment. The way it ends now is with Butch and Sundance leaving the house with guns a’blazing, and we hear return fire. But we don’t actually see anyone die, leaving the ending slightly more ambiguous than the original where Paul Newman and Robert Redford got to test their acting chops on a gruesome death scene.

10. Clue. It had three alternate endings, but unlike these other movies, you could actually see all three of them when the movie was released as long as you were willing to pay to see the movie three times. Originally you didn’t know what ending you were going to get until you got to that dividing point at the end of the movie, but eventually, theaters started advertising if ending A, B, or C was playing so patrons could see the endings they hadn’t seen yet. Rumor has it there was actually a fourth ending as well, but they decided enough was enough.

Do you like any of these alternative endings better, or are you happy with the choices directors ended up making? Do you know of any other drastically different outcomes?

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Comments (57)

  1. I had no idea the theatrical run of Clue did that. I just remember the movie on VHS having three endings introduced by cards.

    posted by Braden on 5-26-2010 at 5:46 pm

  2. On the other end of the spectrum is Blade Runner, where the director’s cut is so ubiquitous that you couldn’t find the “happy ending” theatrical version on home video until 2007.

    posted by Matt on 5-26-2010 at 5:52 pm

  3. I’m glad that Clerks didn’t end that way. There never would have been a Clerks II and my name would have never been in movie credits.

    posted by Brit on 5-26-2010 at 5:52 pm

  4. clue is my favorite movie of all time!!!!!

    posted by JJ on 5-26-2010 at 6:08 pm

  5. There was an alternate ending for Rambo:First Blood, where Col. Trautman actually kills Rambo in the police station (this was approximate ending in the book as well).

    posted by SPN on 5-26-2010 at 6:29 pm

  6. Also, I read once that Independence Day originally had a different ending as well, but it didn’t go over so well with test audiences. The first ending had Will Smith’s and Jeff Goldblum’s character dying after implanting the virus in the alien mother ship.

    posted by Jennifer on 5-26-2010 at 6:37 pm

  7. Then there’s the original FATAL ATTRACTION ending….

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTcsg-yYS5Y

    posted by Amy on 5-26-2010 at 6:38 pm

  8. There’s an alternate ending to Big where Susan goes to the machine and wishes to be young and you see her walk into Josh’s classroom as “the new girl”.

    posted by A Fan on 5-26-2010 at 7:16 pm

  9. The alternate ending to I am Legend is more how the book ends. He is “legend” because the vampire thingers say he is; a legend that massacres their kind.

    posted by jdh on 5-26-2010 at 7:51 pm

  10. Even though test audiences didn’t care for it, I like the original ending to LOST.

    http://bitsandpieces.us/2010/05/26/how-lost-should-have-ended/

    posted by Johnny Cat on 5-26-2010 at 8:50 pm

  11. There would have been a helluva sequel to that version of Terminator 2, which would explain how a kid with a survivalist mother who escaped from a mental institutuon by threatening to kill her psychiatrist by injecting him with drain cleaner could somehow get elected to the Senate

    posted by Joe Maz on 5-26-2010 at 9:16 pm

  12. There’s a horribly bleak alternate ending to “28 Days Later” – arguably one of the scariest post-apocalyptic zombie flicks out there. In it, the bike courier (can’t remember his name at the moment) dies, after the women he’s with attempt (vainly) to save him in an abandonned hospital. He comes full circle, I guess. Depressing.

    posted by Eener on 5-26-2010 at 9:30 pm

  13. No one mentions Pretty in Pink? Originally Andy ends up with Ducky. The original script by John Hughes surfaced recently, but no footage of the scene survives.

    If you look closely and Blane (Andrew McCarthy) he’s wearing a wig in the scene – he had already shaved his head for his next role when test audiences said that they hated the original ending and it had to be re-filmed.

    posted by Koeniou on 5-26-2010 at 9:40 pm

  14. Lando died and the Millennium Falcon blew up in the original ending of Return of the Jedi.

    posted by Kirk on 5-26-2010 at 11:43 pm

  15. I would love to see the original ending for Little Shop of Horrors. It is one of my favorite musicals ever. When it originally came out on its earliest DVD incarnation (I believe), this ending was among the extras. I would love to see the reprise of “Somewhere that’s Green” with Audrey telling Seymour to feed her to the plant. Powers that be, if this footage does still exist, could we please get a director’s cut or at least a DVD with it in the extras???

    *Trivia side-note – Ellen Greene – Audrey in the film – also played Sylar’s mom on Heroes. If I remember correctly she had a line about wanting to be somewhere that’s green.*

    posted by Cheza on 5-26-2010 at 11:46 pm

  16. I Am Legend is not an iconic film. The Will Smith version is a terrible and empty version of the original story.

    posted by John on 5-27-2010 at 12:12 am

  17. The workprint footage of the original Little Shop of Horrors ending can be found on Youtube. It’s really dark and depressing. It also changes the tone of the film from a black comedy-musical to a 1950s giant monster movie.

    posted by Michael D. on 5-27-2010 at 12:14 am

  18. Hitchcock originally intended Cary Grant to be a murderer in Suspicion, delivering a glass of poisoned milk to his wife, but the studio was afraid of the effect on his box-office draw. Also, in Talk of the Town, the original ending had Deeana Durbin end up with David Niven, but test audiences wanted her with Cary Grant.

    posted by Susan on 5-27-2010 at 1:15 am

  19. Wings of Desire is another movie that was originally supposed to end with a pie fight.

    posted by Jon on 5-27-2010 at 3:12 am

  20. I kept thinking that during that scene in “I am Legend,” that they just wanted the woman back. I was unsatisfied with the ending because it wasn’t addressed. They made the darkseekers sympathetic in earlier scenes to lead up to the original ending and then scrapped it.
    Also, when Dante dies in the original Clerks ending, are his last words, “I’m not even supposed to be here today.”?

    posted by Jeanette on 5-27-2010 at 6:48 am

  21. I remember seeing all three Clue endings in the theater at one screening. It was much like the video copy now, where they play them back to back.

    posted by Chris on 5-27-2010 at 8:05 am

  22. the alternate ending to the moby dick television movie mini-series was a little odd. Ahab and Moby become friends and move in to an apartment together in the upper east side. Queequeg is their goofy neighbor and ishmael is their landlord. The only rule of the apartment complex is “no whales allowed.” hilarity ensues.
    There was a sequel planned called “The blubber and the land-lubber”

    posted by cajun bob on 5-27-2010 at 8:19 am

  23. Woah, woah, Thelma and Louise ORIGINALLY had a REALLY different ending – in the book they make it to Mexico and escape. When adapted to film, even as a feminist classic, Hollywood couldn’t stomach their escape, so sent them off a cliff instead. Because women can fantasize about the kind of power that T & L grabbed, but have to remember that they can never really have it – you’ll always end up off the cliff. Urgh.

    posted by Bekka on 5-27-2010 at 8:45 am

  24. I really wish the Twilight movies had an alternate ending, in which Loverboy gets staked and the Werewolves win.

    posted by diane on 5-27-2010 at 8:46 am

  25. One of my favorite movies is Brazil. The US studio re-cut the film and added a nonsensical happy ending. Terry Gilliam fought hard to have his original version released, and eventually won out. The whole story is covered in the book “The Battle of Brazil” and the unreleased US cut is included in the current DVD box set.

    posted by Mark on 5-27-2010 at 9:07 am

  26. The butterfly effect had two or three alternate endings. I remember seeing them on the dvd. The one i liked best featured the guy’s featus strangling itself after realizing that no matter what he did, someone would get messed up.

    posted by dan on 5-27-2010 at 9:10 am

  27. dear cajun bob

    thanks for that

    phil

    posted by phil on 5-27-2010 at 9:16 am

  28. Lost in all this is how you believe that The Princess Diaries, I Am Legend, and Little Shop of Horrors are ICONIC films. The rest I could at least get behind in one way or another as being Iconic, but those three teeter on even being good films.

    posted by Ian from Baltimore on 5-27-2010 at 9:22 am

  29. Whenever a movie changes the original ending of a book, it’s almost always not as good. One altered ending that impressed me, though, as being somewhat clever and well thought-out was the film of John Grisham’s “The Firm.” While I can’t exactly remember the novel’s ending, I do recall that Mitch (Cruise in the film) ends up having to be disbarred and escapes to the Caribbean with his wife. The film, however, added an interesting twist that allows Mitch to remain a lawyer while still bringing down the firm. The ending didn’t feel tacked on or like they sold-out.

    posted by Derek on 5-27-2010 at 9:42 am

  30. I am Legend would have been better with the original ending. It would have been just slightly more consistent with the book.

    I was going to mention Brazil, but someone beat me to it. I remember when they first broadcast it on TV, the showed the alternate “happy” ending.

    There’s a documentary out there about the changes they made to Blade Runner, because of test audience reactions. Among the changes was the voice over, which Harrison Ford intentionally did really poorly, in the hopes that they wouldn’t use it.

    I’ve worked with focus groups in the past, and they are not always the best source for feedback. Some movies, I watch, and I can tell which scenes were re-written, because they kill the pace of the movie. Hancock comes to mind…

    posted by Jon on 5-27-2010 at 10:19 am

  31. Another fun fact about the Blade Runner happy ending: the aerial shot of the car driving into the wilderness is also the opening footage of The Shining with Jack heading to the Overlook Hotel.

    posted by EMStoveken on 5-27-2010 at 10:29 am

  32. @dan – you’re right, there were two endings. The more depressing director’s cut with the fetus strangling itself, and the more hollywood ending where the characters see each other years later on the street.

    I liked the darker one too!

    posted by Jenny on 5-27-2010 at 10:50 am

  33. It still pisses me off to no end that they changed the ending of I Am Legend. The original ending would have really made it a worthwhile film.

    The ending of Star Trek: Generations was changed as well. In the original, Dr. Soran shoots Kirk in the back, but test audiences hated it, arguing that Kirk would never be dumb enough to turn his back on an enemy. They re-shot the ending so Kirk dies when the bridge he’s on collapses because he was trying to reach a kill-switch to prevent a missile (which would have destroyed the entire planet system) from launching.

    posted by Jina on 5-27-2010 at 11:42 am

  34. Am I wrong in thinking more movies need to end in pie fights? I think it would be hysterical, if say at the end of Twilight, the vampires and wolves just started chucking banana creams at each other.

    posted by M on 5-27-2010 at 12:10 pm

  35. @Cheza -

    Not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but it’s in 3 parts:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaBJDRIgJRY

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUiz4WgTB7c&feature=related

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddIK3CIMzFs&feature=related

    posted by Amy on 5-27-2010 at 12:13 pm

  36. One of my favorite alternate endings is Army of Darkness. Originally Ash messes up the words a little to get back to his own time, but he still makes it there all right. Alternately, he arrives in a far flung post apocalyptic future, apparently the only human alive. Admittedly, the original ending is a lot more fun, and more consistent with the feel of the film.

    posted by TJ on 5-27-2010 at 12:15 pm

  37. Eener: I came here to post about exactly that. I actually much prefer the cut ending, although it is awfully wrenching. One of my friends once mentioned (I can’t remember now if it’s another alternate or the one he’d have liked to have seen; I think the latter) that what SHOULD have happened was the cut ending, plus when the girls left the hospital silhouetted in the doorway, we see the woman lift her gun to the teenager’s head. Cut to black, and the sound of two gunshots. I think this would have been pretty well in keeping with the desperate tone of the whole film. So defeatist!

    The optimist ending, in fact, felt so out of place to me that every time I watch it even now I half-expect the plane to wheel back around and the movie to end with the sound of machine gun fire. I was actually startled the first time I saw it and this did not happen.

    That movie is way too cynical and dark to have the ending it does. I love it anyway, but in my head, that’s how it ends.

    posted by Nicole on 5-27-2010 at 12:31 pm

  38. I do love the ending(s) to CLUE. Although the first time I saw it I was only like seven or eight and I didn’t understand what was going on, I just wanted there to be a clear ending. Now, I appreciate it’s ingenuity.

    posted by tess on 5-27-2010 at 12:38 pm

  39. @ Koeniou, I never noticed the wig “reshoots.”

    But, I did read somewhere that John Hughes was so upset that he changed the ending to Pretty in Pink that he wrote Some Kind of Wonderful just so the movie would end the way he wanted.

    It makes sense because the plotlines are exactly the same.

    posted by holly on 5-27-2010 at 1:00 pm

  40. Isn’t the ultimate “alternate ending” the one written for the film version of The Grapes of Wrath? Or how about The Handmaiden’s Tale?

    The irony of “reality television” is that audiences don’t seem to really like reality all that much. It just isn’t happy enough.

    posted by Kim on 5-27-2010 at 1:01 pm

  41. I remember the commercials for the Clue movie where they would say “how it ends depends on where you see it.”

    posted by Wayne on 5-27-2010 at 1:53 pm

  42. I was actually pretty disappointed that the ending of I Am Legend wasn’t the same as the book. The ending of the book is what made it a meaningful piece of literature instead of horror-fluff.

    posted by Rabullione on 5-27-2010 at 1:57 pm

  43. The first time I saw The Butterfly Effect was on DVD and had the ending where the fetus strangles itself. The next time I watched it was on TV and it had the ending where Ashton Kutcher’s and Amy Smart’s characters just pass each other and don’t know one another. I think I watched the ending three times on tv thinking I missed something since the ending wasn’t the same as the first time I watched it.

    posted by Jen on 5-27-2010 at 2:39 pm

  44. JJ-Clue is my favorite movie of all time too!! It’s so ridiculously funny. I love Madeline Kahn and Eileen Brennan. Priceless.
    Koeniou-Thank you so much for that explanantion. I always wondered why his hair looked so horrible in that prom scene.
    M-I completely agree. More movies need to end in pie fights. It would be like watching more Stooges and anything with more Stooges is awesome.

    posted by Jenn on 5-27-2010 at 2:56 pm

  45. Speaking of the “Terminator” series: “Terminator: Salvation” director McG was planning a shocker of an ending in which John Connor (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the actual film yet), gravely injured at the end of the movie, is saved by the doctors making him a cyborg using the machines’ high-tech. Just when you think everything’s OK, Connor suddenly reveals that he is now under the killer machines’ control and shoots everyone! The End. Christian Bale is said to have pushed hard for this ending as well, but the studio, as you might expect, didn’t like it since it obviously would have meant no more sequels (although the movie’s weak box office may have ultimately ensured that fate anyway!)

    posted by Adam on 5-27-2010 at 3:27 pm

  46. Has anyone heard of how the cartoon Land Before Time was orignally going to end, all 4 of the young dinosaurs dieing and arriving in the great valley which would have been a metaphor for heaven.

    Of course the bad test screenings lead to the massive editing of the film.

    posted by Emily on 5-27-2010 at 4:21 pm

  47. Emily, I loved the Land Before Time! Always made me cry. That ending would have made me cry more!

    posted by Laura on 5-27-2010 at 5:06 pm

  48. I have seen the movie Clue on TV and they showed all three endings.

    posted by Kari on 5-27-2010 at 5:13 pm

  49. Kirk may have been too smart to turn his back on Soran, but he was certainly dumb enough to leave the nexus (a place where time is meaningless) RIGHT AWAY, and choose to challenge Soran MINUTES BEFORE his plan was about to go off.

    Me? I would have gone back to the time when Soran had originally been sucked out of the Nexus, and somehow stopped the sucking. Pun intended,

    posted by Joe Maz on 5-27-2010 at 8:56 pm

  50. @cheza You’re in luck as Mental Floss has a late movies post with most of these endings with youtube clips. http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25914.html

    Terry Gilliam’s Brazil also has several endings (cuts and changes made by studios and tv syndicates) I was so confused when I saw it on tv the first time and it had a happy ending.

    posted by Callie on 5-27-2010 at 9:21 pm

  51. What are these movies? I’ve heard of Terminator 2 but not any of the others.

    posted by J.S. on 5-27-2010 at 9:28 pm

  52. The book Jaws is different enough to warrant a lazy afternoon reading in the sun.

    posted by ladyofargonne on 5-30-2010 at 3:40 pm

  53. There was another reason they removed the pie fight from Dr. Strangelove. When the President was hit by a pie Gen. Turgidson shouted, “Gentlemen! Our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime!” The movie was released less than 2 months after Kennedy was assassinated.

    posted by Aaron on 6-5-2010 at 10:58 pm

  54. The first Rambo movie, First Blood, originally had him killed in the end, just like the original novel.

    posted by Aaron on 6-5-2010 at 11:00 pm

  55. For the alternate ending of 1993′s The Firm,I would end the movie with Gene Hackman’s character,Avery Tolar,faking his death in the Cayman Islands and with Tom Cruise’s character,Mitch McDeere and Jeanne Tripplehorn’s character,Abby McDeere,all leave the city of Memphis,Tennessee and move to Beverly Hills,California where Avery and Mitch decide to start their own law firm,Tolar and McDeere.and Abby takes a job teaching history at a local high school.I would also show where the partners at Bendini,Lambert,and Locke are all indicted for having a part in the deaths of the lawyers that died and they all are sent to prison for life without parole.

    posted by Wm.Clark Drew II on 10-17-2010 at 5:19 pm

  56. In the alternate ending,Avery and Mitch turn against the partners in the firm,but sadly Hal Holbrook’s character,Senior Partner Oliver Lambert dies of a heart attack before he too is indicted for his role in the deaths.

    posted by Wm.Clark Drew II on 10-17-2010 at 5:24 pm

  57. Ummm, where to start, OK – Thelma and Louise, I am Legend, the Princess Diaries and Clue?, Really? not only aren’t these movies Iconic they’re also not good, not even a little. Clue is on the list as one of the worst movies of all time. OK I did like the princess diaries but Iconic – I think not.

    posted by kasLV on 12-9-2010 at 2:59 am

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