7 Deleted Scenes That Would’ve Totally Changed Classic Films

Sometimes, all it takes to totally alter a film is the exclusion of a single scene. Many scenes that end up on the cutting room floor amount to little more than rote exposition or noncritical character development. But directors also frequently have to (or are made to) cut scenes once thought to be critical to the film’s success.

From shocking alternate endings test audiences despised to snippets of dialogue that totally change how the audience perceives a character, these seemingly small changes inevitably altered the cinematic course of these classic films.

The Shining (1980)

Director Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining was initially meant to include an epilogue scene that totally changed the film’s resolution. After rejecting the ending as written by Stephen King in the novel from which the film is based, Kubrick flip flopped back and forth during production on what to do about the film’s now-iconic final scenes.

In King’s version of the story, Jack (played by Jack Nicholson in the film) perishes in a fire at the Overlook Hotel after his son and wife are able to make their escape. Kubrick felt this ending wouldn’t translate well to film and began toying with a few different ideas for the ending—including one where Danny (the son of Jack and his wife, Wendy) meets his demise.

For all his directorial fastidiousness and famed attention to detail, Kubrick was reportedly unconcerned about the film’s ending making logical sense, instead trying to pinpoint which final scene would resonate with audiences most.

When Warner Bros. told Kubrick to shorten the film, he cut two key scenes: one showing Jack discovering a sort of “haunted scrapbook” chronicling the hotel’s dark past, and the other a two-minute scene depicting Wendy in a hospital after the shot of Jack frozen and before the showing of the mysterious 1921 photo featuring him. In the hospital scene, the Overlook Hotel’s manager, Stuart Ullman, visits Wendy and Danny in the hospital, informing them no evidence of any kind of unusual activity appeared at the hotel before presenting Danny with a ball that had been mysteriously rolled to him by an unseen force earlier in the film.

When Warner Bros. found this ending to be too ambiguous, they asked Kubrick to cut it, totally reshaping the ending as it appears in the final film.

Pretty Woman (1990)

Director Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman originally had a much bleaker ending than what audiences saw in theaters. While the final cut of the film depicted a saccharine sweet ending with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere’s characters back together, screenwriter J.F. Lawton’s original draft of the script was a much darker depiction of prostitution that ended with a Robert’s character—jaded and dejected—taking a melancholy trip to Disneyland using cash Gere’s character had discourteously thrown at her after expelling her from his car. When Disney picked up the project, they insisted the film be turned into something more akin to a modern, feel-good fairy tale.

Despite the film undergoing a tumultuous rewriting and preproduction process, Pretty Woman was a (mostly) critical and commercial success, pulling in more than $400 million at the box office against a budget of just $14 million. Roberts’s role in Pretty Woman has arguably become the most recognizable of her career. Fun fact: numerous actresses including Molly Ringwald, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Meg Ryan declined the part.

First Blood (1982)

Had production on the 1982 action film First Blood (the progenitor and first installment in Sylvester Stallone’s career-defining Rambo franchise) followed the plot of its source material—David Morrell’s 1972 novel of the same name—the franchise’s remaining four films would never have been made.

The original novel takes a much more critical look at the Vietnam War and its aftermath in comparison to its cinematic counterpart; the story wraps on a decidedly less optimistic note, with Rambo being shot and killed by authorities after a PTSD-fueled rampage.

While the film’s version of events show a subdued Rambo surrendering to authorities after a comparatively tame manhunt, the violence in the novel’s ending is much more shocking. The movie version has Rambo only killing a single deputy during his violent spree; the novel shows him responsible for the deaths of almost two dozen people.

Morrell’s novel explores considerably darker subjects like the psychological toll of warfare on veterans and adjusting to society following military service. But Stallone’s Rambo is a much more two-dimensional, franchise-friendly protagonist. Despite its difference to the novel, author David Morrell has praised the film, giving particular adulation to Stallone’s performance.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Director Frank Oz’s cinematic adaptation of the comedy musical Little Shop of Horrors, based on the 1982 off-broadway musical of the same name, originally maintained the stage production’s bleaker conclusion. In the off-broadway production, Audrey II—the sentient, carnivorous plant at the show’s center—devours the protagonists before launching a full scale global takeover. After the film was screened with its original ending, audiences reacted so negatively to it that production rewrote and reshot the entire thing.

When the film was released in 1986, its conclusion instead saw the destruction of Audrey II and the reunification of the production’s romantic leads, Audrey and Seymour. The couple marries and decamps to the suburbs after seemingly destroying the murderous plant. As Audrey and Seymour bask in their newly shared domestic bliss, the film ends with a shot of a new Audrey II grinning and sprouting in the couple’s new garden. While the film’s ending might imply Audrey II isn’t finished with the couple just yet, it isn’t even close to the grim, apocalyptic outcome of the off-Broadway iteration.

Fatal Attraction (1987)

In the 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction, Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas), a New York City attorney, embarks on an ill-fated extramarital affair with his colleague Alex Forrest (Glenn Glose), an ambitious and obsessive publicist. Their brief tryst comes to a close and Dan happily returns to his wife, Beth. Alex, heartbroken and unwilling to let go of the doomed relationship, turns to stalking and harassing her former lover; this escalates to her breaking into the family’s home and killing Dan’s daughter’s pet rabbit. Dan confronts Alex at her apartment, where the pair get into a physical altercation. Stopping short of killing Alex, a recalcitrant Dan reconciles with Beth after confessing to his affair.

At the film’s crescendo, Alex breaks into the Gallagher home and tries to murder Beth—but Dan intervenes and tries to drown Alex in the bathtub before Beth shoots and kills her.

In the film’s original ending, Alex instead dies by suicide and fames Dan for her murder before Beth discovers an incriminating tape the former had made that exonerates the latter. But this version received poor audience feedback, prompting the studio to bring Close and Douglas back to reshoot the film’s conclusion. Douglas was ultimately on board and felt the change to the ending would be best for the film’s success, Close and director Adrian Lyne were strongly opposed to the idea. After the studio offered him an additional $1.5 million to shoot the new ending, Lyne begrudgingly agreed to the change.

While Close and Lyne might have been unhappy with the film’s new ending, Fatal Attraction scored both Close and Lyne Academy Award nominations after pulling in a staggering $320 million at the worldwide box office.

Aliens (1986)

In the original cut of Aliens—director James Cameron’s followup to Ridley Scott’s 1979 smash hit Alien—a heartbreaking scene shows Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the film’s protagonist, awakening from more than half a century of hypersleep to find her daughter, Amanda, has died. A devastated Ripley stares longingly at a photo of an aged Amanda while lamenting having missed out on almost the entirety of her daughter’s life.

Much of the events of Aliens centers on Ripley’s harrowing bid to keep Newt, a young girl recently orphaned in an alien attack, alive; the cut scene gives considerably more emotional weight to the character’s almost instant maternal bond with the young orphan.

Despite her removal from Aliens, Amanda, alive and well, serves as the protagonist in the Alien: Isolation video game released in 2014, which centers on the character’s search for her missing mother. Alien: Isolation sold more than two million copies, solidifying Amanda as an Alien universe mainstay. Signourney Weaver even agreed to reprise her role as Ripley for some voice work that appears in the game’s extra downloadable content.

Metropolis (1927)

Director Fritz Lang’s Metropolis was met with both derision and adulation upon its 1927 German release. It was originally around two and a half hours in length; Paramount hacked the film down to around an hour and 40 minutes before distributing it further. Much to Lang’s chagrin, the truncated version of the film removed entire characters, key plot points, and simplified the class struggle at the heart of its dystopia.

Despite its technical marvel and heretofore unprecedented scale and expense, some critics still disliked the film even after sizable cuts were made to the original. But Metropolis was later given a critical reappraisal for its visionary aesthetics, ingenious production, and cutting edge special effects.

While the original cut of the film was thought to be lost for decades, large parts of it were restored in 1984 after music producer Giorgio Moroder purchased the rights to the film. Moroder’s version—complete with restored pieces of the original film paired with a soundtrack featuring contemporary artists like Freddie Mercury and Pat Benatar—was equally, if not more, reviled than its predecessor.

Moroder’s 1984 version of Metropolis was widely regarded as the preeminent iteration until a shocking discovery in an Argentinian museum uncovered additional footage that almost entirely restored the film to its original version. The museum’s curator, Paula Felix-Didier, flew with the film to Germany to confirm its authenticity, restoring an indispensable piece of cinematic history.