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Here some exemples of how movies where intended to end (often times way better endings, but either disapproved of the Studio, or rejected during test screening by imbeciles)
If you have other movies ending (do not make them up, it needs to be a real ending done but rejected) add them.
Here we go
Butterfly effect:
Published ending:
To save Kayleigh, Ethan travels back to the early childhood and wispers to her he would hate her and kill her family if she would ever talk to him again. Therefor Kayleigh grows up at her Mothers and evades the torture of her fathers, Evan lives a life without balckouts,...
Real intended Ending:
Evan takes more drastic measures than just the menace at the Bday pary. He realizes that he has to die to end all the misery around him. So he travels back to before his birth and kills himself in his mothers belly with his own umbilical cord.
Even though this ending was a more radical Ending in accordance to the groundidea of the movie (his mom had to dead births, which would lead to his two siblings having the same powers and also decided not to be born). This ending was to dark in the test screening. This ending is on the Directors Cut version
28 days later:
Published ending:
Jim saves Hannah and Selena of the rape by the Soldier Unit, but is shot. Both woman treat his wounds, while the Undead are starving to dead. The trio manages to alert a pilot overflighing them.
Real intended Ending:
hannah and Selena get Jim to an abandoned Hospital. Without medical knowledge, they try to save him, infecting him Morphine and Adranaline and doing CPR. Now Jim lies at the end of the Film, as in the beginning, on a hospital bed, but this time dead. Hannah and Selena leave without him.
Rare footage:
D. Boyle and A. Garland were positive about this ending: for them the scene were both girls leave the hospital, put in front that they survived death and destruction at the end. The test screen left people believing that both girls awaited the certain death outside and were shocked about the depressing ending.
Boyle reshot a scene to makes clear that the woman survives but finally shot a third alternative in that Jim also survives.
A lame one
Pretty woman
Published ending:
After a fight, Viviane leaves Edward and returns to her shady home. But when he comes in a white limo underlined by "La Traviata", and surmounts his vertigo on the ladder with flowers between the teeth, she realizes she can't live without ther millionaire prince. They fall into eachothers arms.
Real intended Ending:
Edward doesn't give the roses to, in the original cocian addicted, Vivian but throws them out of the limo and drives away. She returns to the red light district after she uses the money from Edward for the shared week to fulfill a dream, once go to Disneyland with her friend Kit (Laura San Giacomo).
Originally "Pretty Woman" would not have become the sweat romantic comedy, but a drama on the topic of prostitution and the social class differences of the L.A of the 80's.
But Disney-President Jeffrey Katzenberg was not amused. On his behave "prettyy woman" got changed to the romantic comedy known, inclusive the happy ending
Rambo : First Blood 1983
Published ending:
Rambo surrenders and let the cops take him without a fight (after the talk with Colonel Trautman)
Real intended Ending:
Rambo begs hus friend and mentor to kill him. He would not bare to be locked up in a cell for the rest of his days. Trautman made him what he is now, so he should also end it. Trautman has problems in doing so though, but with a jerky mouvement, Rambo leads him to trigger the trigger and Rambo sinks in
The dark ending is taken as originally in David Morrells "First Blood" from 1972 - however the test screening public was not fond of it. They were so shocked by the depressive ending that a new ending was filmed where John survived. positive outcome : SEQUELS
Natural Born Killers 1994
Published ending:
With the help of TV host Gale, the couple flees fromn the prision and kill the follower later in the woods. In the credits wer see Mickey and the in labour Mallory, years later still driving in the Van through the country, now with two kids of their own.
Real intended Ending:
Mickey and Mallory can flee from the prison with the help of Owen (Arliss Howard). But this "angel" is in reality an other serial killer and kill both with a shotgun in the getaway car.
Oliver Stone had filmed this ending as he feared, people would be indignant that both Killers would survive the end without a single scratch. He tought it was consequent, quite "karma-ish" that both would not die from the police but by an other killer. Yet he still decided to let both get away with it, to enable to produce a possible sequel for it, as he admitted in interviews later.
I am legend
Published ending:
Surrounded by a hord of mutants, Neville blows them all apart including himself with a granade.
Real intended Ending:
Neville realizes that he was mistaken on the nature of the Mutants. They were not the blood thirsty beasts, but actually carring, emotional beings - a new mankind. They only attacked because he kept one of the hostige - the infected woman, on whom he experimented to find a cure. Neville surrunders the woman to the horde and they back off with harming him.
The original ending is in line with the Book from Richard Matheson, in which the book ask the question whether the human is the beast - in the end, Neville blindly massacred quite a ot of them. However the test audiance was so irritated by the reflective ending, that it needed to be changed post-shot, even though it messes with the main idea of the concept.
Actal screenshot of the "real" ending:
The last of Philp Banter
Published ending:
Alex enters the Dans house and attacks his wife with a knife. Dan believes to have her knockout, but she attacks him again from behind, and is stopped in the last moment by Dans wife.
Real intended Ending:
Alex commits suicide- but put in a way so it seems Dan killed her. Police comes and arrests Dan under the shocked eyes of his wife.
Test audience categoricly rejected that ending, so that an more positive ending was shot during 3 weeks - despite the harsh protest of Glenn Close, who believed in the suicide was psychologicly more in line with the caracter.
Actal screenshot of the "real" ending:
Army of Darkness 1993
Published ending:
Ash can with a magic potion fall asleep and awake in the present. there he could return to his Job as Supermaketemployee - when suddenly a client becomes posessed with a demon and attacks. Ash slays the demon.
Real intended Ending:
Ash falls asleep thanks to the magic potion - and Ash oversleeps mankind. He awakes in a postapocaliptic world with a fallen civilisation
Universal Pictures dismisses this end as too negative- and ordered Sam Raimi (yes new spiderman) to shot a more optimisitic ending.
Actal screenshot of the "real" ending:
Blade Runner 1982:
Published ending:
After a Replicant saved his life, Deckard resigns his job - and flees with Rachael from the city. During the flight through untouched nature, Deckard tells her that she is a new typ of replicant that doesn't need to die after 4 years.
Real intended Ending:
Deckard leaves his flat with Rachael and finds on his doorstep an origami unicorn, that his police buddy gaff left behind. Deckard dreamt of a unicorn but never told Gaff about it. Thus as Gaff knows about the dream, the dream must have been implanted, meaning Deckard is a Replicant himself. The doors close behind Deckard and Rachael and vanish in an uncertain future.
The grimm ending irritated the viewers at the test screenings so much ,that they quicky pasted an happy ending together with the idealistic aerialsots, which were left over during the shot of an entierly different movie: Stanley Kubricks "Shining".
Actal screenshot of the "real" ending:
The Omen 1976:
Published ending:
Damiens Surrogate parents discover his true identity- and are killed inder mysterious circumstances. Damian is put under the authority of the Us- president, a close friend of his father,and goes with him to the funeral of the surrogates parents. as the coffins are put down, damian turn in the camera with a diablic smile.
Real intended Ending:
In the original the little brat would have nothing to smile about. In this version the funeral is not only for his surrogates parents bit for him too. In this version they achieve to kill Damien.
And this irritated Alan Ladd, CEO of Twentieth Century Fox. The Antichrist, according to Ladd, could not be killed. And so Richard Donner was given an additional budget to make a new ending.
Pretty in Pink 1986
(yes that is Jon cryer, aka Alan Harper)
Published ending:
When Andie comes to the Prom as last solution with the best friend Duckie, blane proclaims his love and leaves the ball. Duckie tells Andie to go after him,and outside they fall into eachothers arms.
Real intended Ending:
Andie and Duckie go to the Ball together where they discover their feelings for eachother. She stops the self-depreciating flirting over Blane, danses and has a good time. It seems as they are in love.
The anti-materialistic end, in which Andie has found her self esteem again, failed in the test screening. So in the end Andie had to get the rich playboy, including the cheesy kiss scene in the big BMW.
Little shop of horrors 1986:
Published ending:
After Seymour Audrey is saved from the mouth of Audrey II and killed the bloody plant, he marries his beloved one.
Real intended Ending:
Seymour feeds his beloved to Audrey II. When he then tries to destoy the plant, she devours him in a piece. Then Audrey II spawns other plants, quickly growing and taking the over the world.
Even though the ending was in accordance to the original musical, on which the film was based, the test audience was shocked that all main caracters were eaten by the plant. So Frank Oz shot a more friendly end to the story.
Dawn of the dead 1978
Published ending:
After the zombies got in the mall, the last survivors of the group, Peter and Francine flee with a helicopter on the roof of the mall.
Real intended Ending:
Only Peter (Ken Foree) and Francine (Gaylen Ross) are still alive. Francine already starts the engines of the helicopter on the roof, when Peter suddenly gets surrounded by Zombies. He holds his pistol to the head and pulls the trigger. The left alone Francine doesn't bear the hoplessly situation anymore and decapitates herself by jumping head first in the rotation propellers of the helicopter. At the end of the credits a close up of the fuel gauge shows that it even hadn't enough fuel to get to safty.
This really grim end was maybe even too much for Romero, and so it was altered while still shooting. Romero claims that this ending was never recorded- though this rare pic show that at least there were some test shots with this original ending
Hope you enjoyed and learnt: test audiences don't necessarily represent the global opinion (to put it mildly)
If you have other movies ending (do not make them up, it needs to be a real ending done but rejected) add them.
Here we go
Butterfly effect:
Published ending:
To save Kayleigh, Ethan travels back to the early childhood and wispers to her he would hate her and kill her family if she would ever talk to him again. Therefor Kayleigh grows up at her Mothers and evades the torture of her fathers, Evan lives a life without balckouts,...
Real intended Ending:
Evan takes more drastic measures than just the menace at the Bday pary. He realizes that he has to die to end all the misery around him. So he travels back to before his birth and kills himself in his mothers belly with his own umbilical cord.
Even though this ending was a more radical Ending in accordance to the groundidea of the movie (his mom had to dead births, which would lead to his two siblings having the same powers and also decided not to be born). This ending was to dark in the test screening. This ending is on the Directors Cut version
28 days later:
Published ending:
Jim saves Hannah and Selena of the rape by the Soldier Unit, but is shot. Both woman treat his wounds, while the Undead are starving to dead. The trio manages to alert a pilot overflighing them.
Real intended Ending:
hannah and Selena get Jim to an abandoned Hospital. Without medical knowledge, they try to save him, infecting him Morphine and Adranaline and doing CPR. Now Jim lies at the end of the Film, as in the beginning, on a hospital bed, but this time dead. Hannah and Selena leave without him.
Rare footage:
D. Boyle and A. Garland were positive about this ending: for them the scene were both girls leave the hospital, put in front that they survived death and destruction at the end. The test screen left people believing that both girls awaited the certain death outside and were shocked about the depressing ending.
Boyle reshot a scene to makes clear that the woman survives but finally shot a third alternative in that Jim also survives.
A lame one
Pretty woman
Published ending:
After a fight, Viviane leaves Edward and returns to her shady home. But when he comes in a white limo underlined by "La Traviata", and surmounts his vertigo on the ladder with flowers between the teeth, she realizes she can't live without ther millionaire prince. They fall into eachothers arms.
Real intended Ending:
Edward doesn't give the roses to, in the original cocian addicted, Vivian but throws them out of the limo and drives away. She returns to the red light district after she uses the money from Edward for the shared week to fulfill a dream, once go to Disneyland with her friend Kit (Laura San Giacomo).
Originally "Pretty Woman" would not have become the sweat romantic comedy, but a drama on the topic of prostitution and the social class differences of the L.A of the 80's.
But Disney-President Jeffrey Katzenberg was not amused. On his behave "prettyy woman" got changed to the romantic comedy known, inclusive the happy ending
Rambo : First Blood 1983
Published ending:
Rambo surrenders and let the cops take him without a fight (after the talk with Colonel Trautman)
Real intended Ending:
Rambo begs hus friend and mentor to kill him. He would not bare to be locked up in a cell for the rest of his days. Trautman made him what he is now, so he should also end it. Trautman has problems in doing so though, but with a jerky mouvement, Rambo leads him to trigger the trigger and Rambo sinks in
The dark ending is taken as originally in David Morrells "First Blood" from 1972 - however the test screening public was not fond of it. They were so shocked by the depressive ending that a new ending was filmed where John survived. positive outcome : SEQUELS
Natural Born Killers 1994
Published ending:
With the help of TV host Gale, the couple flees fromn the prision and kill the follower later in the woods. In the credits wer see Mickey and the in labour Mallory, years later still driving in the Van through the country, now with two kids of their own.
Real intended Ending:
Mickey and Mallory can flee from the prison with the help of Owen (Arliss Howard). But this "angel" is in reality an other serial killer and kill both with a shotgun in the getaway car.
Oliver Stone had filmed this ending as he feared, people would be indignant that both Killers would survive the end without a single scratch. He tought it was consequent, quite "karma-ish" that both would not die from the police but by an other killer. Yet he still decided to let both get away with it, to enable to produce a possible sequel for it, as he admitted in interviews later.
I am legend
Published ending:
Surrounded by a hord of mutants, Neville blows them all apart including himself with a granade.
Real intended Ending:
Neville realizes that he was mistaken on the nature of the Mutants. They were not the blood thirsty beasts, but actually carring, emotional beings - a new mankind. They only attacked because he kept one of the hostige - the infected woman, on whom he experimented to find a cure. Neville surrunders the woman to the horde and they back off with harming him.
The original ending is in line with the Book from Richard Matheson, in which the book ask the question whether the human is the beast - in the end, Neville blindly massacred quite a ot of them. However the test audiance was so irritated by the reflective ending, that it needed to be changed post-shot, even though it messes with the main idea of the concept.
Actal screenshot of the "real" ending:
The last of Philp Banter
Published ending:
Alex enters the Dans house and attacks his wife with a knife. Dan believes to have her knockout, but she attacks him again from behind, and is stopped in the last moment by Dans wife.
Real intended Ending:
Alex commits suicide- but put in a way so it seems Dan killed her. Police comes and arrests Dan under the shocked eyes of his wife.
Test audience categoricly rejected that ending, so that an more positive ending was shot during 3 weeks - despite the harsh protest of Glenn Close, who believed in the suicide was psychologicly more in line with the caracter.
Actal screenshot of the "real" ending:
Army of Darkness 1993
Published ending:
Ash can with a magic potion fall asleep and awake in the present. there he could return to his Job as Supermaketemployee - when suddenly a client becomes posessed with a demon and attacks. Ash slays the demon.
Real intended Ending:
Ash falls asleep thanks to the magic potion - and Ash oversleeps mankind. He awakes in a postapocaliptic world with a fallen civilisation
Universal Pictures dismisses this end as too negative- and ordered Sam Raimi (yes new spiderman) to shot a more optimisitic ending.
Actal screenshot of the "real" ending:
Blade Runner 1982:
Published ending:
After a Replicant saved his life, Deckard resigns his job - and flees with Rachael from the city. During the flight through untouched nature, Deckard tells her that she is a new typ of replicant that doesn't need to die after 4 years.
Real intended Ending:
Deckard leaves his flat with Rachael and finds on his doorstep an origami unicorn, that his police buddy gaff left behind. Deckard dreamt of a unicorn but never told Gaff about it. Thus as Gaff knows about the dream, the dream must have been implanted, meaning Deckard is a Replicant himself. The doors close behind Deckard and Rachael and vanish in an uncertain future.
The grimm ending irritated the viewers at the test screenings so much ,that they quicky pasted an happy ending together with the idealistic aerialsots, which were left over during the shot of an entierly different movie: Stanley Kubricks "Shining".
Actal screenshot of the "real" ending:
The Omen 1976:
Published ending:
Damiens Surrogate parents discover his true identity- and are killed inder mysterious circumstances. Damian is put under the authority of the Us- president, a close friend of his father,and goes with him to the funeral of the surrogates parents. as the coffins are put down, damian turn in the camera with a diablic smile.
Real intended Ending:
In the original the little brat would have nothing to smile about. In this version the funeral is not only for his surrogates parents bit for him too. In this version they achieve to kill Damien.
And this irritated Alan Ladd, CEO of Twentieth Century Fox. The Antichrist, according to Ladd, could not be killed. And so Richard Donner was given an additional budget to make a new ending.
Pretty in Pink 1986
(yes that is Jon cryer, aka Alan Harper)
Published ending:
When Andie comes to the Prom as last solution with the best friend Duckie, blane proclaims his love and leaves the ball. Duckie tells Andie to go after him,and outside they fall into eachothers arms.
Real intended Ending:
Andie and Duckie go to the Ball together where they discover their feelings for eachother. She stops the self-depreciating flirting over Blane, danses and has a good time. It seems as they are in love.
The anti-materialistic end, in which Andie has found her self esteem again, failed in the test screening. So in the end Andie had to get the rich playboy, including the cheesy kiss scene in the big BMW.
Little shop of horrors 1986:
Published ending:
After Seymour Audrey is saved from the mouth of Audrey II and killed the bloody plant, he marries his beloved one.
Real intended Ending:
Seymour feeds his beloved to Audrey II. When he then tries to destoy the plant, she devours him in a piece. Then Audrey II spawns other plants, quickly growing and taking the over the world.
Even though the ending was in accordance to the original musical, on which the film was based, the test audience was shocked that all main caracters were eaten by the plant. So Frank Oz shot a more friendly end to the story.
Dawn of the dead 1978
Published ending:
After the zombies got in the mall, the last survivors of the group, Peter and Francine flee with a helicopter on the roof of the mall.
Real intended Ending:
Only Peter (Ken Foree) and Francine (Gaylen Ross) are still alive. Francine already starts the engines of the helicopter on the roof, when Peter suddenly gets surrounded by Zombies. He holds his pistol to the head and pulls the trigger. The left alone Francine doesn't bear the hoplessly situation anymore and decapitates herself by jumping head first in the rotation propellers of the helicopter. At the end of the credits a close up of the fuel gauge shows that it even hadn't enough fuel to get to safty.
This really grim end was maybe even too much for Romero, and so it was altered while still shooting. Romero claims that this ending was never recorded- though this rare pic show that at least there were some test shots with this original ending
Hope you enjoyed and learnt: test audiences don't necessarily represent the global opinion (to put it mildly)
Last edited:
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