7 Classic Movies That Almost Had Absurdly Dark Endings

The Original Ending

According to producer Gary Kurtz, the first draft of Jedi left the Star Wars universe even more bleak than it was at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. For starters, Han Solo is killed while trying to destroy the shield generator. The Death Star still gets destroyed, but Luke becomes so disturbed over his final encounter with Darth Vader that he decides to venture off on his own, leaving Princess Leia to lead the tattered remains of the Alliance by herself. We assume that, after all that, nobody wanted one goddamn thing to do with the Ewoks.

Apparently, Harrison Ford really wanted Han Solo to be killed off at some point during the trilogy. In fact, the whole reason he was frozen in carbonite at the end of Empire was because the producers weren't sure if Ford was going to return for the next film. If he had decided not to, at least they'd found a way to write him out of the series.

However, George Lucas decided not to go with this ending, taking a firm stance against killing off any of the trilogy's heroes. Not because of how depressing it would make the movie, mind you, but because he was worried about how it would affect toy sales. Both Kurtz and Ford have confirmed this, claiming that Lucas "didn't see much of a future in 'dead Han toys'."

Rocky is an amateur boxer moonlighting as a low-level mob enforcer when the world heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed, selects him as a replacement opponent for the upcoming New Year's Day title bout, literally because Apollo likes the sound of Rocky's nickname.

Rocky spends the whole movie training for the fight with absolutely no illusion that he is actually going to win. He just wants to last all 15 rounds against the champion without getting knocked out, and when the day of the fight finally comes, he gets his wish -- he loses, but he goes the distance, and he gets his life together in the process.

The Original Ending

Rocky gets to the epic battle against Apollo Creed and throws the goddamn fight.

That's right -- among a baffling whirlwind of other major differences, Stallone's original script ended with a disillusioned Rocky deciding to lose to Apollo on purpose and leave the world of boxing behind him, because apparently he had a wealth of other untapped talents. After retiring, Rocky uses the money he earned from scamming the hell out of his once-in-a-lifetime title shot to open up a pet store for Adrian, which is possibly the least inspirational ending you could write for an underdog story.

Stallone churned out his first draft of Rocky in three days, which explains why this version seems like it was created by somebody on the verge of seeing what color sounds make before passing out on a coffee table. With the help of a few producers who saw potential in the project, Stallone rewrote the script several times before they found a studio willing to greenlight it. Which is good, because if the movie had stayed the way Stallone originally envisioned it, there would have been no room for Rocky sequels, and the 1980s would've been a sad, barren wasteland.

At the end of the week, Edward drives to Vivian's apartment in a limousine, gives her a rose, and asks her to have sex with him for free for the foreseeable future. She agrees, they share a romantic kiss, and Roy Orbison sings us into the credits.

The Original Ending

We've previously talked about how Vivian was a drug addict in the original script. But that doesn't even scratch the surface of how dark this story used to be:

Edward does indeed drive up to Vivian's rancid cocaine paddock, but instead of a rose, he leaves her an envelope full of boner cash to cover their week together and gets right back into his car. There's no sweet reconciliation, no heartfelt romantic gesture, and no limousine -- Edward just dumps Vivian's ass back on Hollywood Boulevard and drives out of her life forever, leaving her literally crawling on her hands and knees crying bitter tears into a pile of money.

That ending was just one of a million other desolately bleak things about the film's original screenplay, a cautionary drama about addiction and prostitution called $3,000. However, after it was purchased by Disney, their chairman, Jeffrey Katzenberg, looked at the script and somehow thought the story of a strung-out prostitute and her unscrupulous john would make a perfect romantic comedy. The film was extensively rewritten to force-feed us a spunky Julia Roberts in a feel-good modern fairy tale, which to date is the only R-rated movie about hookers ever filmed that doesn't have any nudity in it.

Terminator Salvation tells the story of cyborg kryptonite John Connor leading a war against an army of machinated overlords in a post-apocalyptic future. Partway through, he teams up with a guyborg named Marcus Wright, who used to be human until he was turned into a metal abomination by the nefarious robots, and he is having trouble adjusting. The two end up battling through a prison to rescue a bunch of captive Resistance fighters, but John is badly wounded and needs a new heart, because apparently furious murderbots can piston-fist you in the sternum without killing you instantly.

Knowing that the humans need John Connor in order to continue their fight, Marcus offers his own heart (one of the only parts of his anatomy that are still organic) up for transplant, heroically sacrificing himself so that the Resistance can live on.

The Original Ending

John and Marcus invade the robo-prison to free their comrades, and once again, John gets horribly wounded. However, in this version, he has absolutely no chance of surviving, robot heart or no. Marcus has been badly damaged, too, and since he will need to be rebuilt, John's wife comes with up a solution:

Hang on, is she saying ...?

Yep, that's totally what she's saying. The film was supposed to end with the real John Connor getting rolled into an anonymous corpse hole while Marcus gets dolled up in John Connor battle makeup to take his place. He then goes on to lead the Resistance with nobody the wiser, at least until a squadron of robots runs a bioscan on him or until one of his keener-eyed troops notices his sudden boulder-juggling super strength.

Apparently, everyone involved was 100 percent behind this idea, and this was the version that was in production until the ending was leaked out onto the Internet before filming had been completed. The studio was reportedly so enraged at the Internet for doing precisely what it exists to do that they felt the need to dramatically change everything. Thus, a franchise built around the Marcus Wright character (which was their original intention) was completely aborted midway through, and the film was rewritten to keep John alive and sweep Marcus under the rug moments before the end credits. Luckily, the production of Terminator Salvation didn't have any more issues with things getting leaked out all over the Internet.

The Original Ending

Hancock becomes obsessed with Mary, but there isn't some barely plausible twist where she also turns out to be a superhero. She's just a regular person, and Hancock exploits this weakness by kidnapping her for an evening of terrifying super-rape:

Hancock manages to stop himself before he harms Mary, but he vents his anger by heroically murdering an entire street full of police officers who were coming to her rescue:

After nearly getting Mary killed, Hancock decides to relieve himself of the burden of being an invincible asshole and tries to shoot himself in the head, because apparently he had been paying even less attention to the movie than the rest of us:

The ending leaves it ambiguous about what ultimately happens to Hancock, but since he can't die, we assume he's doomed to spend the rest of eternity wallowing in miserable self-loathing.

Needless to say, this is hardly the way to end a Hollywood blockbuster. Once the script was bought, it spent 12 years bouncing from director to director and going through countless rewrites until it became the instantly forgettable trivia question that is a Will Smith summer movie.

The Original Ending

In the film's original ending (and in the stage musical on which the film is based), both Seymour and Audrey are killed by the hulking space plant, who then goes on a rampage with an army of his murderous offspring:

That sequence alone cost millions of dollars to produce, but was entirely scrapped after two test screenings of the film received the kind of intensely negative reception normally reserved for televised weddings. According to director Frank Oz, the preview screenings were going very well and the audiences were loving the film right up until Audrey and Seymour get eaten, at which point the theaters turned into vacuums of confused rage.

The film's release was immediately delayed, and a new ending was hastily re-shot to allow people to leave showings of the comic rock opera without feeling crushed by bewildering depression.

Things become so catastrophic that the only way to save the life of his childhood sweetheart, Kayleigh, is for Evan to stay out of her life forever. He travels back to the day he met Kayleigh and prevents them from ever becoming friends. Back in the future, Evan passes Kayleigh on the street and sees that things have turned out well for her, even though he knows nothing about her new life and is seemingly basing this conclusion on the fact that she's wearing a white suit.

The Original Ending

The alternate ending of The Butterfly Effect is easily the most noteworthy thing about an otherwise completely forgettable film, because it is quite possibly the darkest conclusion in motion picture history. Ultimately realizing that the only way to undo all the damage he has caused with his time-traveling tomfoolery is to prevent himself from ever existing, Evan teleports back to the inside of his mother's womb and strangles himself to death with his umbilical cord:

In the words of the filmmakers, an unborn fetus murdering itself in utero "wasn't going to sell popcorn," even though that's the ending they had always wanted. So they decided to shoot another ending for the film's theatrical release, which isn't necessarily a "happy" ending, but in a movie that's already full of molestation and child pornography, it's about as sunny a denouement as the audience has any right to expect. And if they paid money to see an Ashton Kutcher movie, they deserve to leave the theater feeling more than a little depleted.

Robin Warder is the co-owner of a pop culture website called The Back Row.

For more movies that were almost completely different, check out 5 Awesome Movies Ruined By Last-Minute Changes and 5 Classic Movies That Almost Had Terrible Endings.

If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out The 4 Best Moments from the Fastest Career Meltdown Ever.

And stop by LinkSTORM to learn how Chewbacca was really the New Hope.

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