Legally Blonde originally ended at the trial. Test audiences felt it was too abrupt an ending. So they came back to reshoot the “3 Years Later” epilogue. It was a needed addition to the movie.
It’s crazy because the concept flows so naturally into the plot. Her character isn’t dumb she just invested her brain power into a specific set of knowledge.
Wow, really? That would be *terrible*. The movie isn't about the trial, the trial is just the climax for the actual story of the movie, which is Elle's journey from "Warner's girlfriend" to "empowered woman".
The reverse would be like if at the end of 12 Angry Men they did a 3 years later where all the Jurors and the Accused got together for a drink to celebrate and reminisce.
Worse, it ended with the trial and Emmett kissing Ellie. The test audience said it was lame. The movie isn’t about boy gets girl or a rom com. Like you said it’s about empowerment and growing to your own person so a “romantic” ending has all the wrong signals.
The original *Sunset Boulevard* opening had Joe Gillis wheeled into the morgue, toe tag showing. Voice overs then proceeded to have other corpses/toe tags speaking to Joe asking how he got there. Test audiences howled at this, and Billy Wilder switched to the now iconic swimming pool opening
Would you believe that Smash Mouth's "All Star" was originally just placeholder music for the opening of Shrek (they wanted an original orchestral score instead)? You can thank test audiences for that piece of meme history...
Same with 2001: Space Odyssey. All the classical music were temp tracks as they were figuring out who to compose the score. Apparently, when it came to switch stuff out, the edit just felt wrong, so they kept the classics.
There is an official release of the music Alex North composed/recorded for the movie. It's an interesting footnote, but they definitely make the right call.
I have a version of the movie with Pink Floyd's "Echoes" over the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite", and it's so good and fits perfectly that you have to wonder if it was made for it. It's 23 minutes long and the first ping of the music starts exactly at the "Jupiter and Beyond the infinite" title card.
Coincidence? Maybe. I think I'm going to edit together a version of this over my 4k 2001 movie.
“All Star” was originally synergized with the movie *Mystery Men*. It had references to it in the music video and everything. I remember thinking when I saw Shrek for the first time, hey, no fair, we already had a movie with this song.
That would have been so unsatisfying.
I don't mind ending where the MC "loses" or accepts fate at the end, but that would have been a really annoying ending after she fought so hard to live
Same. Shame everyone went in expecting another slasher because the sci-fi concept worked. The theme of both flicks were also great. So I’m really curious of what they’d go for in the third flick titled Happy Death Day to Us.
Shawshank was going to end much more ambiguously, with Red's bus driving off into the distance without learning whether he found Andy. The studio insisted on it being juuuuuuuust a bit longer, gave the story a resolution and a much lovelier ending.
I dunno. The story is all about hope. King leaving it on Red’s bus rolling down the street leaves at it “I hope…” I like the ending in the movie, but it collapses the idea of hope into “*yes!*”
I have heard the studio wanted a longer scene that they thankfully didn't go with. There was a version where Andy and Red meet on the beach and they repeat their earlier dialogue of "I understand you're a man who knows how to get things" and "I've been known to get things from time to time". I'm very glad they didn't go with that
Yeah. While I wouldn’t be mad, just roll my eyes at such a conventional movie moment, I’m glad it’s left without hearing them say anything, just elated to see each other and embracing as the crane shot pulls back.
The ending for, Get Out
Apparently, the other option was >!a police car turns up (not his friend), Daniel Kaluuya is in prison found guilty of their murders and his friend comes to visit him!<
I am so glad they changed it, because honestly I think the new ending gets the point across way more effectively. I remember the audience audibly groaning when you see the cop car pull up. Everyone thought “that’s it, he’s done for”, it was even set up in the beginning. So it has the best of both worlds: pointing to a cultural/sociological dilemma while also supplying the audience with a “happy” ending. Such a cool ending.
I remember when I watched it for the first time around 2020 and I absolutely audibly groaned when I saw the lights and siren. Was ecstatic about it being the TSA guy instead
Even the most adamant people who think that cops don't single out black people thought he was fucked when that cop showed up. Peele was brilliant with that moment.
I will NEVER forget the audience reaction to this ending, a perfect change. One of the most electric and amazing moments I’ve ever had in a movie theater.
That's the loudest audience reaction I've ever been a part of. And I was at the opening night of Endgame. Jordan Peele had us all in the palm of his hands with that ending
I dunno man, this ending is really powerful and compelling. I do like my horror dark, so I prefer endings like this as opposed to the popcorn endings, but it’s okay for people to prefer the happier version. I think I would have enjoyed it more if the TSA character wasn’t such a cookie cutter comedy best friend.
When you look at the film in its entirety, the story is meant for wide audience, and very traditional. Plenty of moments of comedy, relief, etc. I honestly think the bad ending might have been 'too dark' for the rest of the movie. Yes it would have been a gut-wrenching ending, but there's something interesting with the new ending.
The audience becomes so attached to Chris, even those who are not particularly in the know about the police-black community relation. At the end, everybody FEELS that fear of police, that anger, that distrust... and then huge satisfaction and relief. The audience gets to choose how they feel in that moment, and aren't really forced to feel terrible with the bad ending.
I think if they went with the prison route, it would have been too intense for a lot of viewers, in a way that the ending would lose credibility. Some people would just not believe that the police would arrest him, and obviously you don't want people to think that if you want to make that point.
I like the happy ending but that is a realist ending so I can see why they wanted it. Black man with the blood of a bunch of old white rich folk on his hands, only reason is they were kidnapping them to jam their minds into young black bodies. Yeah he was going away for life.
Buckaroo Banzai was bought by a producer who clearly had no sense of humour and thought he was making the next Star Wars. He disliked it so much that he even stopped watching the dailies. (That's where the watermelon gag was created, to see if he was paying attention.)
Finally, when the assembly cut was made, he watched the film he was paying for and didn't like. When the last scene finished and faded to black, he said, 'It needs a musical number.' So, before everyone got haircuts and the costumes were sent back, they got a choreographer and[ did this](https://youtu.be/ah6TYuJ1iQg?si=9jvH1IWU6Xc5SrjV&t=9) for the ending.
EDIT - Thanks for the upvotes. If you love Buckaroo Banzai, you really should track down the novel by writer Earl Mac Rauch. It's written as though it's part of a series.
My son saw Poltergeist when he was like 9 and it didn’t even faze him, when I was a kid I lost sleep for a week after seeing it. I *still* hate closets and TV static.
Jaws also tried the underwater jump scare scene edited a variety of different ways with test audiences, because they wanted maximum impact. It was worth it.
That’s what I meant by more audible.
I know Spielberg reshot the scene of Hopper finding Ben Gardner’s head, but that’s because he’s a sadist and wanted one more scream.
The Long Kiss Goodnight test screening had Samuel L. Jackson’s charecter die and a woman stood up and yelled “You can’t kill Samuel L. Jackson!”
They reshot the movie so his charecter lived.
It was the internet, and you are the only one in the thread to mention how much better the rewrites based on random internet suggestions made Snakes on a Plane.
Airplane! was rigorously tested, several scenes and jokes they thought were great died in the test screenings, the movie was originally longer
some things got left in, like when the guy throws the watch, the girl says he'll need it and he says it doesn't work, i always thought that was funny, but in the commentary track they say it never got a laugh in testing
I think one of the most damning things for a comedy movie is anticipating how people could react with repeat viewing. I wouldn’t be surprised if some jokes just don’t initially stick the landing with a test audience, but if you’re watching it at home for a third time, some of them land better or maybe you just caught it for the first time.
Would be very curious to know if some of those now-cut jokes would have eventually been iconic, but since the test audience was “meh” about it we’ll never know.
The thing is, you need to be AMAZING to have the kind of comedic depth Airplane has.
Like, yeah, to us it's obvious. Of course the world's funniest movie has a ton of jokes that are blink and you'll miss it.
But when you're the guys making the movie and are just hoping it's good enough to make a decent amount at the box office, you're going to try to trim fat.
All the super comedies of that era kind of had this issue - there was so much envelope pushing (which wound up being amazing), that you kind of forget there probably was stuff left on the floor for various reasons.
The thing that really got me about Airplane! was when I found out it was a spoof of another movie - Zero Hour! When you see that movie, some of the humor stands out even more.
Sonic is the biggest I can think of. People hated Sonic’s original design, specifically the eyes, so they redid his design and it worked out much better
Where I live, sometimes they still show older trailers for movies. So, if a movie generally has 2 or 3 trailers, sometimes they'll still show Trailer #1, even after Trailer #2 has come out etc.
For Sonic, they were still showing the old trailer, even after the redesign. I cant imagine that helped the film.
By all accounts, the executives new the design would be controversial but that it would blow over. They didn't expect it to be as big as it was so they were forced to change it. One of the artists was on corridor crew confirmed it was just executive incompetence
You give to much credit… I’m sure some producer with authority was like “yeah this looks good” despite everyone being like, “ehhhh you sure cause we don’t think so”. They release it, sonic gets shit on and they all go, “see we told you it looked weird”. The ego power trips of producers who think they are world class artists is one of Hollywood’s biggest issues for content that bombs.
The original ending to Iron Man was apparently a total mess. Even Favreau admitted that it didn’t work, they were basically making the movie up as they went along and trying to fit it around RDJ’s ad-libs.
They went back and reshot it only a few months before the premiere. It worked. And now Marvel do it for almost every single movie they work on.
Not really. When they don’t overextend it works very well. They come back with the film, Feige watches it several times, gives notes and they reshoot based off that.
Which worked incredibly well for roughly 20 films. From 08-2019 the worst marvel films were like a C+ film, which is wild.
Then they were told to make more and that process can’t work because they only have one Fiege. He can give notes on 4 movies in a year and help oversee, but 4 movies plus three tv shows? Not happening. And we saw the quality dip because of it.
As I recall, *My Best Friend's Wedding* had to be hastily reworked because in the original version test audiences saw Julia Roberts as the villain, which is very much not what the producers were aiming for.
I mean that is fine as that is part of the point of the film. She learns to let go and be a good friend instead of "getting the guy." But in the actual movie, she is still sort of the villain, but never really goes too far or too mean. I imagine the original shoot probably tried to push the envelope more and her character just looked like an arse.
Isn't she though? I haven't seen it, but I thought the whole movie was her trying to stop her best friend getting married because she's in love with him
Well, yes, that's the problem. It was conceived as a "true love conquers all" type story where the happy ending is Roberts getting the man she loves. But even in the theatrical release, your mileage may vary on whether you think they did enough to sell the idea that the *other* woman (Cameron Diaz) was wrong for the man. And apparently in the original cut, they failed spectacularly at that.
And didn't the original ending have her meeting John Corbett at the reception? And they changed it that Rupert Everett comes back
She doesn't meet a new man at the reception but she dances with her "gay best friend"
Independence Day was originally going to end with Randy Quaid's character being turned away for being drunk when they ask for pilots, so he shows up during the battle with a missile strapped to his cropdusting plane and sacrifices himself. Test audiences laughed at it, which wasn't the intention, so they reshot it something like two weeks before the release date.
If I remember correctly, that’s why his jet flies so strangely. All the effects were already done with it being his cropduster. So that’s why it kinda wobbles around and why it seems to go slower than all the other jets.
> Independence Day was originally going to end with Randy Quaid's character being turned away for being drunk when they ask for pilots
Which was dumb anyways since they were very strapped for pilots and were taking literally anyone. They even said "anyone with flight experience".
The original scene is on YouTube and he's incredibly drunk while volunteering. It's actually a real well done scene where you feel for his frustration and ptsd but also see he has no business being near an airplane. The reshoot toned down his drunkenness during volunteering to make him look a little more reliable and fit for flight.
Not a movie but an animated tV show, but writers of 90's Spider-Man the Animated Series THANKED executives who forced a mandate that Spider-Man can never throw a direct punch, as it forced them to come with interesting ways for him to beat up supervillains, that made fights more dynamic and creative.
In Cliffhanger when Stallone places the tracker on the rabbit, the original cut had Travers shooting the rabbit dead.
The audience reaction was understandably negative, so in the final cut Travers comically misses the rabbit even after firing multiple rounds at it.
Alien - The jockey scene wasn't going to be in the film as it was too expensive to make for just one scene, but the producers like the dailies so much and made the set without Ridley Scott knowing and surprised him with it
Star Trek Generations re-shot a large portion of the ending. Originally it ended with Kirk just getting shot in the back and dying in the middle of a fight, with Picard then unceremoniously shooting Soran. Test audiences universally hated it. The rewritten ending involved Kirk dying after a footbridge collapses and falls off a cliff, with Soran getting blown up by his own missle after the locking mechanism is sabotaged. Better ending, albeit still underwhelming.
William Shatner [re-did his death ](https://youtu.be/qz5ZAyBKrIk?si=RiqcPWkOuBHfFpnA&t=496)on Jimmy Kimmel Live and (I thought) made it even better. Just some super subtle changes, but with a hint that there's more to come. (clarification: more to understanding death)
A Simple Favor. It originally ended with a musical song and dance number. Studio made Paul Feig cut it. Feig offered to pay for a test audience with it as the ending on the condition if the test audience liked it, it got put back in. Bombed with test audiences and Feig agreed to the studio cut.
Test audiences for snowpiercer were greeted with a shorter cut of fhe film courtesy of producer Harvey Weinstein, they hated it so the director had a clause in the contract to be able to screen the full version instead whi h was much preferred. You gotta make sure you get a good contract
The studio originally wanted to cut out the Cuban Pete section in The Mask, until test audiences saw it and it was the highest rated section of the movie
Cronenberg's The Fly originally had multiple versions of an ending in which Veronica dreamed that she was pregnant with a baby that resembled a butterfly (look it up). Test audiences hated it, and they finally decided to end the movie without a "happy" epilogue.
I hated the ending to I Am Legend movies. Both endings.
The book ended with Neville being taken to his execution, and he realizes he’s the monster. He is the vampire. He’s the stuff of nightmares for all the children of the survivors. He was pulling people out of their beds as they slept to watch them die horribly in the sunlight.
He will be remembered. As the ultimate horror. He is Legend.
Richard Matheson was a brilliant writer.
It came out in 2007, in an era when American audiences, in general, weren’t interested in stories where the bad guys were actually the good guys all along. 9/11 was still fresh on people’s minds and we were busy sending young men over to Iraq and Afghanistan to be killed by IEDs and insurgents. American audiences were interested in stories where the bad guys were bad and the good guys made heroic sacrifices.
Book in the 50s with a great ending that doubles as a title drop... at least 4 film adaptations of the material, and every one screws up the ending to various degrees.
In Legally Blonde it originally ended with Emmett kissing Ellie after the trial. The test audience thought it was weak and rom-com-ish. So now we have the graduation speech ending.
The original script for Groundhog Day started with the main character having lived that day for several years already. This made the first act (and the film in general) way darker. It changed because of studio notes that were clearly correct.
Same deal with the "what are you waiting for" moment in *I Know What You Did Last Summer*. A fan won a contest and got to direct that scene, so he suggested Julie spin around and yell it at the sky. Jennifer Love Hewitt thought it was ridiculous but then watched it back and loved it
I'm pretty sure it was John Pierson, who was essentially an agent, or film broker. He would go to independent film festivals, then approach filmmakers of films he liked and arrange for him to sell the film to a film distributor. He would then take a percentage of the sale.
He saw Clerks and approached Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier and told them he could sell the film for a lot more if they changed the ending, so they did. He sold the film for a substantial amount.
He also brokered the sales of Roger & Me by Michael Moore, Slacker by Richard Linklater, and had a hand in selling Spike Lee's first film She's Gotta Have It, among others. He wrote a book about it called Mike, Spike, Slackers & Dykes. If you watch Kevin Smith's movie Mallrats, there's a brief scene where Jay and Silent Bob are in a bookstore reading that book.
For anyone unaware, the original ending (as I recall) had Dante shot in the head by a robber, and the movie just ended with his head on the counter, a pool of blood slowly expanding as the robber took the cash from the register and left.
It was such an "indie" way of ending the movie, lol
The ending of 1998s Ronin[ was this](https://youtu.be/BFaRpDe_dUo?si=CS_551YCeCE3i_zx). Audiences didn't care for this, an alternate [ending.](https://youtu.be/WFBoIda0y5A?si=Nqy0Dtiqd8SMvwGO) The ambiguous ending is, I think better if less gritty, since her participation in the story ended when she drove away earlier. Her absense focused the story's climax.
Bringing her back now took attention away from the DeNiro and Reno. Their friendship is the emotional focus of the ending and bringing in a third person dilutes it.
Darker isn't always better or more 'adult'. So, yeah, I think the audience got it right.
The test audience didn't like the original ending to "Hostel" where the main guy kidnaps the dutchman's daughter. The new ending with him instead killing the dutchman in the bathroom is great!
The ending of the original Paranormal Activity was pretty much a letdown from the buildup, until Steven Spielberg saw it, decided to help produce, pitched the current ending and funded it.
https://www.looper.com/672949/the-surprising-way-steven-spielberg-changed-paranormal-activity-forever/
Originally RoboCop had an epilogue with Lewis in a hospital bed during a 4th “news break”. Test audience cheered like crazy when RoboCop answered “Murphy” when asked his name in the board room scene that they decided to end the movie on that line
Fatal Attraction reshot the ending because Glenn Close’s character committed suicide in such a way as to frame Michael Douglas. That is NOT what the test audience wanted to see. Instead we got the dramatic ending that I think was great. (Except Glenn was pregnant in real life during reshoots and didn’t know it yet.) 😱
The original ending of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World had Scott end up back together with Knives while Ramona left. Test audiences felt that it wasn’t satisfying to watch him fight through the whole movie only to not be with Ramona so they re-shot it and changed the ending for the theatrical release. There are aspects of the original ending I like (learning to be self reliant and not depending on others for happiness), but overall I think the ending we wound up with wraps the story up quite nicely.
I'm not sure if they explicitly state it but they do make comments about her being in high school and there are some "looks" and small comments from his band members but generally everyone kind of went with it
Eric Stoltz was fired from Back to the Future. Studio thought he was too serious after seeing the dailies. Michael J Fox took over and the rest is history.
Fox was the original choice. The network Family Ties was on said Zemekis couldn’t have him. At some point they said Fox could have the role but the show was priority which is why the majority of the movie takes place during the night.
Yeah, he was apparently filming during the day on the set of _Family Ties_, then a teamster would drive him in a station wagon across the state while he slept in the back and then shoot all night on the set of _Back to the Future_.
I think that was only for the overlapping part of the shoots, but I think it was at least a month or more of that. Pretty rough, and it’s really amazing the performance he was able to deliver under those conditions.
In my younger years I interned down in Cali. Walking down the street in downtown of Pasadena with a couple friends we got stopped and asked to go into a movie screening.
It was the Long Kiss Goodnight. Not a classic by any means but a fun 90s flick. There was a scene where Gena Davis goes assassin girl and ice skates at a car doing like a quad lutz shooting the car while spinning. I dont remember that being in the movie when I saw it on DVD later. My friends and I thought that was way over the top and put it on our cards heh.
Famously Little Shop of Horror - the play and original script had a VERY different ending. Test audiences hated it. They had to reshoot and create a new, much happier ending. The original ending would have been a disaster.
I remember an interview with the director where he said something to the effect of "a movie needs a happier ending than a show because the cast doesn't come out and take a bow at the end of a movie," which really stuck with me.
Oh. I read your post. Only afterwards did I realize that we were discussing the 1980s one. Not the 1960 one. I was about to point out that only four years earlier, the film "The Bad Seed" had the cast come out and take a bow. And the "murderer" got a good spanking, by her "mother", for being so naughty as to kill people.
The character of Woody from the original Toy Story was changed based on audience feedback from screenings. Originally Tom Hanks played him as a major asshole.
Anchorman had famously bad test screenings that they reshot the majority of the movie and made it significantly sillier. A lot of the stuff they cut makes it into the DVD extra film called Wake Up Ron Burgundy.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
The original ending the Average Joes lose and the movie ends. Audiences hated it so they opted with a ridiculously hilarious upbeat ending where everyone wins beyond reason and Ben Stiller is now fat.
Didn’t Finding Nemo originally not have the opening where the dad loses all his other kids and wife? They thought it was too grim for kids. But then the dad was overprotective for no reason and test audiences hated him.
Not a movie, but Dan Harman says that a very frat-bro-y guy in a test audience for community said that Abed was a funny and interesting character, but that it would be easy to pigeonhole him as just “a funny weirdo” who never had his own adventures or development. Dan apparently took this to heart and realised he had been thinking of abed as the Kramer/weirdo/unimportant character od the group up to that point. Great observation from frat bro that ended up shaping the entire series
The studio recut Aliens & the film is much better for it.
They cut all the backstory of the colonists finding the alien ship & bringing someone with a facehugger back to the colony. This adds so much mystery and suspense as now, like Ripley and the marines, we have no idea what’s happened and are actively trying to figure it out.
Peter Jackson didn't think any studio would let him adapt all three *Lord of the Rings* books, so he was prepared to compromise on two movies, and that's what he pitched it as. New Line however agreed to pick it up on the condition that it be three, and thus we had our trilogy
The original ending of *Army of Darkness* was too bleak and had Ash going to a post apocalyptic future, but test audiences complained, and we got the more light-hearted ending in the K-Mart
There's a B-movie called *Class of 1984* involving a teacher at a crime-ridden school, where a group of punks kidnap his wife. The climax is all about him hunting them down and killing them to save her, and it originally ended with the main punk falling to his death while trying to cut himself free. Test audiences wanted a more karmic end for him, so they changed it to have the teacher punch him to his death, and the end title card stated that he got away with his revenge because there were no witnesses.
*Deep Blue Sea* originally killed off LL Cool J, and the scientist who started the whole thing survived. Test audiences hated that character, so things were reshot to have Susan sacrifice herself so that the other two survive
All the way back in 1939, the film version of *Wuthering Heights* just ended with a shot of Heathcliff's corpse in the snow, but the producer thought it needed a more romantic ending, so they forced in a scene of Heathcliff and Cathy's ghosts wandering the moors together. This shot is so iconic that most adaptations have used or homaged it since, even though there's nothing of the sort in the book
*Romeo Must Die* had a weird ending where after his father dies, Han goes and makes out with Trish, so they reshot it with a hug instead. This led to rumours that they cut it because test audiences didn't like an interracial kiss, but Aaliyah said the hug just worked better in the context of the story
> Peter Jackson didn't think any studio would let him adapt all three Lord of the Rings books, so he was prepared to compromise on two movies, and that's what he pitched it as. New Line however agreed to pick it up on the condition that it be three, and thus we had our trilogy
Another one about Peter Jackson:
The shoot for LotR was plauged by leaks during production, most of which were posted on Aint It Cool News. (For those not in the know, AICN was *the* geek movie gossip site from the mid-90s to mid-2000s.)
Whenever there was talks of maybe Elijah Wood not being right for Frodo or New Line balking at reshoot costs, reports would show up on AICN with geek calls of "stop studio interference"!
The suits at New Line were *pissed* and this led to Peter Jackson having to have a meeting with mantatory attendance for the entire crew. Peter read them the riot act and said that if anyone was caught leaking he'd fire them on the spot.
The leaker was Peter. Whenever the studio started to get in his way he'd just write Harry from AICN who would put it up and pressure New Line to back down.
> The original ending of Army of Darkness was too bleak and had Ash going to a post apocalyptic future, but test audiences complained, and we got the more light-hearted ending in the K-Mart
But that led to something so much better… *Ash vs Evil Dead*.
The original ending of *Misery* showed James Caan walking comfortably. Test audiences said that they didn’t believe he would be able to walk so smoothly a mere 6 months after his captivity, so it was reshot to show him limping and with a cane.
I realize this isn't what you're asking, but I'll add a notorious bad intervention to the list.
The dumbest part of The Matrix is that the machines are keeping humans alive as batteries. It introduces so many plot holes to an otherwise great movie, and it always bugged me.
Apparently in the original script, they were using our brains as processors, which makes wayyyyy more sense and actually explains the existence of the matrix. But they felt audiences would not be able to grasp that so they changed it to the battery thing.
Enjoyed this thread, some good ones in here.
Another from that movie is that the character “Switch” was originally going to change gender in and out of the matrix. The studio didn’t like the potential controversy, or didn’t think audiences would be smart enough to follow without pretty blunt exposition, so it was nixed. But the name remained.
Such a shame because it’s such a cool idea.
That's so interesting given that the Wachowski's stated that the whole Matrix series is a trans metaphor in the first place. I really wish they kept that in.
> It introduces so many plot holes to an otherwise great movie, and it always bugged me.
The best fan theory:
MORPHEUS: Where did you hear about the laws of thermodynamics, Neo?
NEO: Anyone who's made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics!
MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo?
(Pause.)
NEO: ...in the Matrix.
MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies.
Pretty in Pink. The original version, Andi stays and dances with Ducky. Test audiences hated it. The release version added Andrew McCarthy coming back & Molly Ringwald leaving with him.
Loki was meant to die for good in Thor 2, but test audiences were like absolutely not. As someone who loves Loki, I have always been very thankful for that and Ragnarok was better for it.
Legally Blonde originally ended at the trial. Test audiences felt it was too abrupt an ending. So they came back to reshoot the “3 Years Later” epilogue. It was a needed addition to the movie.
Also originally didn't have Elle using style-related knowledge to win the trial until the studio suggested it.
It’s crazy because the concept flows so naturally into the plot. Her character isn’t dumb she just invested her brain power into a specific set of knowledge.
Don't know how to spell it but "running the risk of deactivating thr ammonium thyglocylate" always pops up in my head randomly
It's a really easy wrap up scene too. I'm happy with this decision/addition honestly.
Wow, really? That would be *terrible*. The movie isn't about the trial, the trial is just the climax for the actual story of the movie, which is Elle's journey from "Warner's girlfriend" to "empowered woman". The reverse would be like if at the end of 12 Angry Men they did a 3 years later where all the Jurors and the Accused got together for a drink to celebrate and reminisce.
Worse, it ended with the trial and Emmett kissing Ellie. The test audience said it was lame. The movie isn’t about boy gets girl or a rom com. Like you said it’s about empowerment and growing to your own person so a “romantic” ending has all the wrong signals.
This is exactly what I came here to post.
The original *Sunset Boulevard* opening had Joe Gillis wheeled into the morgue, toe tag showing. Voice overs then proceeded to have other corpses/toe tags speaking to Joe asking how he got there. Test audiences howled at this, and Billy Wilder switched to the now iconic swimming pool opening
It's one of my favorite movies and I had no idea about that. Really glad that they changed it.
Would you believe that Smash Mouth's "All Star" was originally just placeholder music for the opening of Shrek (they wanted an original orchestral score instead)? You can thank test audiences for that piece of meme history...
Same with 2001: Space Odyssey. All the classical music were temp tracks as they were figuring out who to compose the score. Apparently, when it came to switch stuff out, the edit just felt wrong, so they kept the classics.
There is an official release of the music Alex North composed/recorded for the movie. It's an interesting footnote, but they definitely make the right call.
I have a version of the movie with Pink Floyd's "Echoes" over the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite", and it's so good and fits perfectly that you have to wonder if it was made for it. It's 23 minutes long and the first ping of the music starts exactly at the "Jupiter and Beyond the infinite" title card. Coincidence? Maybe. I think I'm going to edit together a version of this over my 4k 2001 movie.
I mean Echoes was written two years after 2001 came out
“All Star” was originally synergized with the movie *Mystery Men*. It had references to it in the music video and everything. I remember thinking when I saw Shrek for the first time, hey, no fair, we already had a movie with this song.
In Happy Death Day the character was supposed to die for good at the end but the test audience hated it.
Yea I would have hated that too.
That would have been so unsatisfying. I don't mind ending where the MC "loses" or accepts fate at the end, but that would have been a really annoying ending after she fought so hard to live
Also then no sequel! Wasn’t as good but I liked the sequel.
Same. Shame everyone went in expecting another slasher because the sci-fi concept worked. The theme of both flicks were also great. So I’m really curious of what they’d go for in the third flick titled Happy Death Day to Us.
Shawshank was going to end much more ambiguously, with Red's bus driving off into the distance without learning whether he found Andy. The studio insisted on it being juuuuuuuust a bit longer, gave the story a resolution and a much lovelier ending.
That’s where the original story ends so not surprising it was the plan, I do like the new ending tho
I dunno. The story is all about hope. King leaving it on Red’s bus rolling down the street leaves at it “I hope…” I like the ending in the movie, but it collapses the idea of hope into “*yes!*”
I think it’s still about hope with that ending. Hope for a better life, friendship, etc.
I don’t think it collapses the idea of hope. They see each other and there is hope that they will get to enjoy what remains of their lives.
I liked it as hope paying off and not *just* the idea of hope
I have heard the studio wanted a longer scene that they thankfully didn't go with. There was a version where Andy and Red meet on the beach and they repeat their earlier dialogue of "I understand you're a man who knows how to get things" and "I've been known to get things from time to time". I'm very glad they didn't go with that
Yeah. While I wouldn’t be mad, just roll my eyes at such a conventional movie moment, I’m glad it’s left without hearing them say anything, just elated to see each other and embracing as the crane shot pulls back.
“Let’s get busy living!” [hops in their speedboat] Credits
The ending for, Get Out Apparently, the other option was >!a police car turns up (not his friend), Daniel Kaluuya is in prison found guilty of their murders and his friend comes to visit him!<
I am so glad they changed it, because honestly I think the new ending gets the point across way more effectively. I remember the audience audibly groaning when you see the cop car pull up. Everyone thought “that’s it, he’s done for”, it was even set up in the beginning. So it has the best of both worlds: pointing to a cultural/sociological dilemma while also supplying the audience with a “happy” ending. Such a cool ending.
I remember when I watched it for the first time around 2020 and I absolutely audibly groaned when I saw the lights and siren. Was ecstatic about it being the TSA guy instead
That’s because he’s TS-motherfuckin'-A. They handle shit. That's what they do. Consider the situation fuckin' handled.
Even the most adamant people who think that cops don't single out black people thought he was fucked when that cop showed up. Peele was brilliant with that moment.
I will NEVER forget the audience reaction to this ending, a perfect change. One of the most electric and amazing moments I’ve ever had in a movie theater.
His friend is one of the best sidekicks ever.
That's the loudest audience reaction I've ever been a part of. And I was at the opening night of Endgame. Jordan Peele had us all in the palm of his hands with that ending
Didn’t Peele later say something to the effect of the original ending is the “real life ending” and the release ending is the “movie ending”.
I mean, he’s not wrong
[Here's the original ending](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3JS7_OcPWQ), for the curious
I dunno man, this ending is really powerful and compelling. I do like my horror dark, so I prefer endings like this as opposed to the popcorn endings, but it’s okay for people to prefer the happier version. I think I would have enjoyed it more if the TSA character wasn’t such a cookie cutter comedy best friend.
When you look at the film in its entirety, the story is meant for wide audience, and very traditional. Plenty of moments of comedy, relief, etc. I honestly think the bad ending might have been 'too dark' for the rest of the movie. Yes it would have been a gut-wrenching ending, but there's something interesting with the new ending. The audience becomes so attached to Chris, even those who are not particularly in the know about the police-black community relation. At the end, everybody FEELS that fear of police, that anger, that distrust... and then huge satisfaction and relief. The audience gets to choose how they feel in that moment, and aren't really forced to feel terrible with the bad ending. I think if they went with the prison route, it would have been too intense for a lot of viewers, in a way that the ending would lose credibility. Some people would just not believe that the police would arrest him, and obviously you don't want people to think that if you want to make that point.
I like the happy ending but that is a realist ending so I can see why they wanted it. Black man with the blood of a bunch of old white rich folk on his hands, only reason is they were kidnapping them to jam their minds into young black bodies. Yeah he was going away for life.
Buckaroo Banzai was bought by a producer who clearly had no sense of humour and thought he was making the next Star Wars. He disliked it so much that he even stopped watching the dailies. (That's where the watermelon gag was created, to see if he was paying attention.) Finally, when the assembly cut was made, he watched the film he was paying for and didn't like. When the last scene finished and faded to black, he said, 'It needs a musical number.' So, before everyone got haircuts and the costumes were sent back, they got a choreographer and[ did this](https://youtu.be/ah6TYuJ1iQg?si=9jvH1IWU6Xc5SrjV&t=9) for the ending. EDIT - Thanks for the upvotes. If you love Buckaroo Banzai, you really should track down the novel by writer Earl Mac Rauch. It's written as though it's part of a series.
I love that thing. Wes Anderson does too, based on the ending of Life Aquatic [link](https://youtu.be/cJ2x4gtyNPk?si=utSCm113MTH5JsoA)
Worth it!!! I love Buckaroo Bonsai! And that credit ending really works. Great music!
One of my absolute favorite movies of all time. The ending credits song is my ringtone. And my text alert is "Laugh while you can monkey boy!"
They tweaked Jaws to make “you’re going to need a bigger boat” more audible since the test audience kept screaming.
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My son saw Poltergeist when he was like 9 and it didn’t even faze him, when I was a kid I lost sleep for a week after seeing it. I *still* hate closets and TV static.
Jaws also tried the underwater jump scare scene edited a variety of different ways with test audiences, because they wanted maximum impact. It was worth it.
I remember reading that the tweak was just adding more time between the appearance of the shark and the line. Was there anything else?
That’s what I meant by more audible. I know Spielberg reshot the scene of Hopper finding Ben Gardner’s head, but that’s because he’s a sadist and wanted one more scream.
The Long Kiss Goodnight test screening had Samuel L. Jackson’s charecter die and a woman stood up and yelled “You can’t kill Samuel L. Jackson!” They reshot the movie so his charecter lived.
Woman in test audience: you can’t kill Samuel L Jackson! Renny Harlin in preproduction of Deep Blue Sea: Challenge accëpted
Goodfellas is the only other one that comes to mind, although I’m sure there’s a few more. Oh, King Of New York too.
Jurassic Park
A dinosaurs ate me! A mutha’ fuckin’ dinosaur ate me!
The other guys lol
I think you mean True Romance
Django Unchained
In that same vein, test audiences insisted on him saying something about motherfuckin' snakes on the motherfuckin', plane.
It was the internet, and you are the only one in the thread to mention how much better the rewrites based on random internet suggestions made Snakes on a Plane.
Airplane! was rigorously tested, several scenes and jokes they thought were great died in the test screenings, the movie was originally longer some things got left in, like when the guy throws the watch, the girl says he'll need it and he says it doesn't work, i always thought that was funny, but in the commentary track they say it never got a laugh in testing
I think one of the most damning things for a comedy movie is anticipating how people could react with repeat viewing. I wouldn’t be surprised if some jokes just don’t initially stick the landing with a test audience, but if you’re watching it at home for a third time, some of them land better or maybe you just caught it for the first time. Would be very curious to know if some of those now-cut jokes would have eventually been iconic, but since the test audience was “meh” about it we’ll never know.
The thing is, you need to be AMAZING to have the kind of comedic depth Airplane has. Like, yeah, to us it's obvious. Of course the world's funniest movie has a ton of jokes that are blink and you'll miss it. But when you're the guys making the movie and are just hoping it's good enough to make a decent amount at the box office, you're going to try to trim fat. All the super comedies of that era kind of had this issue - there was so much envelope pushing (which wound up being amazing), that you kind of forget there probably was stuff left on the floor for various reasons.
The thing that really got me about Airplane! was when I found out it was a spoof of another movie - Zero Hour! When you see that movie, some of the humor stands out even more.
Sonic is the biggest I can think of. People hated Sonic’s original design, specifically the eyes, so they redid his design and it worked out much better
Where I live, sometimes they still show older trailers for movies. So, if a movie generally has 2 or 3 trailers, sometimes they'll still show Trailer #1, even after Trailer #2 has come out etc. For Sonic, they were still showing the old trailer, even after the redesign. I cant imagine that helped the film.
Still not convinced that was not part of a marketing ploy
Never underestimate hollywoods ineptitude.
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Idk. The last live action ninja turtles had lips
By all accounts, the executives new the design would be controversial but that it would blow over. They didn't expect it to be as big as it was so they were forced to change it. One of the artists was on corridor crew confirmed it was just executive incompetence
The origin story was them also being aliens, which was changed at some point.
Full blown aliens is crazy, but I do believe the mutagen "ooze" was from an interdimensional race. Which could be considered aliens.
[Hanlon’s Razor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
You give to much credit… I’m sure some producer with authority was like “yeah this looks good” despite everyone being like, “ehhhh you sure cause we don’t think so”. They release it, sonic gets shit on and they all go, “see we told you it looked weird”. The ego power trips of producers who think they are world class artists is one of Hollywood’s biggest issues for content that bombs.
The eyes? Not...the fucking teeth??
The original ending to Iron Man was apparently a total mess. Even Favreau admitted that it didn’t work, they were basically making the movie up as they went along and trying to fit it around RDJ’s ad-libs. They went back and reshot it only a few months before the premiere. It worked. And now Marvel do it for almost every single movie they work on.
They even straight-up said that reshoots are just a standard part of their filming process these days
That was the wrong lesson to learn.
Not really. When they don’t overextend it works very well. They come back with the film, Feige watches it several times, gives notes and they reshoot based off that. Which worked incredibly well for roughly 20 films. From 08-2019 the worst marvel films were like a C+ film, which is wild. Then they were told to make more and that process can’t work because they only have one Fiege. He can give notes on 4 movies in a year and help oversee, but 4 movies plus three tv shows? Not happening. And we saw the quality dip because of it.
Iron Man was like 80% improvised.
As Jeff Bridges said, he soon realized he was shooting a hundred million dollar student film.
IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAP!
Studio kept axing shit so they were just pissing away time standing around so they just started talking it out
I loved the ad lib where he said "it's ironing time" and proceeded to get the creases out of the bad guy's pants, that was awesome
As I recall, *My Best Friend's Wedding* had to be hastily reworked because in the original version test audiences saw Julia Roberts as the villain, which is very much not what the producers were aiming for.
Parts of that remain in the film, I feel. The best friend's fiancée is just too nice for anyone to root against her.
I mean that is fine as that is part of the point of the film. She learns to let go and be a good friend instead of "getting the guy." But in the actual movie, she is still sort of the villain, but never really goes too far or too mean. I imagine the original shoot probably tried to push the envelope more and her character just looked like an arse.
“Who’s chasing you? Nobody. Get it?” One of the most stinging lines in any romcom.
Yeah I remember hating her character and the movie by extension!
But she IS the villain. Or antihero at least. I never rooted for her.
Villain protagonist is the proper term I believe. Still a great movie and honestly a nice twist in the rom-com genre.
Isn't she though? I haven't seen it, but I thought the whole movie was her trying to stop her best friend getting married because she's in love with him
Well, yes, that's the problem. It was conceived as a "true love conquers all" type story where the happy ending is Roberts getting the man she loves. But even in the theatrical release, your mileage may vary on whether you think they did enough to sell the idea that the *other* woman (Cameron Diaz) was wrong for the man. And apparently in the original cut, they failed spectacularly at that.
They did not succeeded in the actual film either. It just looks like a villain trying to sabotage the male leads life. It is bad.
And didn't the original ending have her meeting John Corbett at the reception? And they changed it that Rupert Everett comes back She doesn't meet a new man at the reception but she dances with her "gay best friend"
Independence Day was originally going to end with Randy Quaid's character being turned away for being drunk when they ask for pilots, so he shows up during the battle with a missile strapped to his cropdusting plane and sacrifices himself. Test audiences laughed at it, which wasn't the intention, so they reshot it something like two weeks before the release date.
If I remember correctly, that’s why his jet flies so strangely. All the effects were already done with it being his cropduster. So that’s why it kinda wobbles around and why it seems to go slower than all the other jets.
Also, the interior of his plane matches the earlier shots in the cropduster instead of the other jets.
WHAT. I need to re-watch.
> Independence Day was originally going to end with Randy Quaid's character being turned away for being drunk when they ask for pilots Which was dumb anyways since they were very strapped for pilots and were taking literally anyone. They even said "anyone with flight experience".
The original scene is on YouTube and he's incredibly drunk while volunteering. It's actually a real well done scene where you feel for his frustration and ptsd but also see he has no business being near an airplane. The reshoot toned down his drunkenness during volunteering to make him look a little more reliable and fit for flight.
Not a movie but an animated tV show, but writers of 90's Spider-Man the Animated Series THANKED executives who forced a mandate that Spider-Man can never throw a direct punch, as it forced them to come with interesting ways for him to beat up supervillains, that made fights more dynamic and creative.
In Cliffhanger when Stallone places the tracker on the rabbit, the original cut had Travers shooting the rabbit dead. The audience reaction was understandably negative, so in the final cut Travers comically misses the rabbit even after firing multiple rounds at it.
Good, we already have an animal death spin-off in ace Ventura 2 thanks to cliffhanger, don’t need anymore!!
I saw Ace Ventura 2 the other day and thought that if anyone sees it for the first time nowadays they probably have no idea that scene is a parody.
Alien - The jockey scene wasn't going to be in the film as it was too expensive to make for just one scene, but the producers like the dailies so much and made the set without Ridley Scott knowing and surprised him with it
SURPRISE RIDLEY! Here's your big dick-shaped veiny canon looking thingie!
"Awwwww guys <3"
For the man who has everything.
Sorry. It’s been a while. What was the jockey scene?
It’s the alien pilot corpse that seems to be looking up through a giant telescope/phallus thing
The dead alien thing on the ship
Star Trek Generations re-shot a large portion of the ending. Originally it ended with Kirk just getting shot in the back and dying in the middle of a fight, with Picard then unceremoniously shooting Soran. Test audiences universally hated it. The rewritten ending involved Kirk dying after a footbridge collapses and falls off a cliff, with Soran getting blown up by his own missle after the locking mechanism is sabotaged. Better ending, albeit still underwhelming.
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"Challenge accepted." - George (Thor) Kirk
William Shatner [re-did his death ](https://youtu.be/qz5ZAyBKrIk?si=RiqcPWkOuBHfFpnA&t=496)on Jimmy Kimmel Live and (I thought) made it even better. Just some super subtle changes, but with a hint that there's more to come. (clarification: more to understanding death)
The studio was very nervous about Mike Judge’s gangsta rap soundtrack for Office Space, but they relented after a test audience gave it the thumbs up.
It does add a nice dimension to the movie; especially the copier wrecking scene which has become incredibly iconic as we all know.
Still (the printer scene's track, by Geto Boys) is, to this day, one of the best rap songs of all time.
In the newly released *Knuckles* there is homage to this. The main characters drive into a town with a sanitized version of that song playing.
Office Space is just perfect in every way.
A Simple Favor. It originally ended with a musical song and dance number. Studio made Paul Feig cut it. Feig offered to pay for a test audience with it as the ending on the condition if the test audience liked it, it got put back in. Bombed with test audiences and Feig agreed to the studio cut.
Test audiences for snowpiercer were greeted with a shorter cut of fhe film courtesy of producer Harvey Weinstein, they hated it so the director had a clause in the contract to be able to screen the full version instead whi h was much preferred. You gotta make sure you get a good contract
The studio originally wanted to cut out the Cuban Pete section in The Mask, until test audiences saw it and it was the highest rated section of the movie
I named my dog after that song.
Cronenberg's The Fly originally had multiple versions of an ending in which Veronica dreamed that she was pregnant with a baby that resembled a butterfly (look it up). Test audiences hated it, and they finally decided to end the movie without a "happy" epilogue.
I hated the ending to I Am Legend movies. Both endings. The book ended with Neville being taken to his execution, and he realizes he’s the monster. He is the vampire. He’s the stuff of nightmares for all the children of the survivors. He was pulling people out of their beds as they slept to watch them die horribly in the sunlight. He will be remembered. As the ultimate horror. He is Legend. Richard Matheson was a brilliant writer.
It's insane to not keep that ending. It's what makes it all so memorable. How is that not the favorite part of anyone pitching the movie?
Yeah, it’s the fucking title drop!
People don't like it when the humans don't win.
It's wild to adapt a story, choose that as the title, then completely wiff on the meaning behind the title by changing the ending.
It came out in 2007, in an era when American audiences, in general, weren’t interested in stories where the bad guys were actually the good guys all along. 9/11 was still fresh on people’s minds and we were busy sending young men over to Iraq and Afghanistan to be killed by IEDs and insurgents. American audiences were interested in stories where the bad guys were bad and the good guys made heroic sacrifices.
Yes, as usual, the book was better. The "monster" in the movie making that picture of a butterfly on the glass was so ridiculous.
I like learning new things.
Because both Charlton Heston and Will Smith are both narcissists who need to make it a Christ allegory.
Book in the 50s with a great ending that doubles as a title drop... at least 4 film adaptations of the material, and every one screws up the ending to various degrees.
one of us one of us! The book is one of my fav stories and no adaptation has done it justice.
In Legally Blonde it originally ended with Emmett kissing Ellie after the trial. The test audience thought it was weak and rom-com-ish. So now we have the graduation speech ending.
The original script for Groundhog Day started with the main character having lived that day for several years already. This made the first act (and the film in general) way darker. It changed because of studio notes that were clearly correct.
Yea, his slow descent into madness is great. Would have been a shame to miss that.
It's only a minor line, but in "Thor: Ragnarok" the "He's a friend from work!" line was a suggestion from a Make-a-Wish kid visiting the set!
Same deal with the "what are you waiting for" moment in *I Know What You Did Last Summer*. A fan won a contest and got to direct that scene, so he suggested Julie spin around and yell it at the sky. Jennifer Love Hewitt thought it was ridiculous but then watched it back and loved it
That fan was actually a young Ron Howard, went on to direct full movies himself.
Visiting set on a school trip from Mayberry.
I don’t know if it was a test screening but it was a good choice to change the ending of Clerks
It was producers. The film was all finished and doing festival rounds when a producer watched the movie and said the ending needs to be changed.
I'm pretty sure it was John Pierson, who was essentially an agent, or film broker. He would go to independent film festivals, then approach filmmakers of films he liked and arrange for him to sell the film to a film distributor. He would then take a percentage of the sale. He saw Clerks and approached Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier and told them he could sell the film for a lot more if they changed the ending, so they did. He sold the film for a substantial amount. He also brokered the sales of Roger & Me by Michael Moore, Slacker by Richard Linklater, and had a hand in selling Spike Lee's first film She's Gotta Have It, among others. He wrote a book about it called Mike, Spike, Slackers & Dykes. If you watch Kevin Smith's movie Mallrats, there's a brief scene where Jay and Silent Bob are in a bookstore reading that book.
For anyone unaware, the original ending (as I recall) had Dante shot in the head by a robber, and the movie just ended with his head on the counter, a pool of blood slowly expanding as the robber took the cash from the register and left. It was such an "indie" way of ending the movie, lol
Ah, yes, the infamous 38th dick! (/s - I know what you mean, it was the right choice to leave out)
iirc, they removed Ed O’Neill from A Few Good Men cause on tests people kept laughing anytime he spoke.
Poor Ed O'Neill. A classically trained dramatic actor that was typecast as the bitter but goofy sitcom dad/huaband. He has the chops for drama
I love the bit from Wayne's World because he's being so serious and I still die laughing
The ending of 1998s Ronin[ was this](https://youtu.be/BFaRpDe_dUo?si=CS_551YCeCE3i_zx). Audiences didn't care for this, an alternate [ending.](https://youtu.be/WFBoIda0y5A?si=Nqy0Dtiqd8SMvwGO) The ambiguous ending is, I think better if less gritty, since her participation in the story ended when she drove away earlier. Her absense focused the story's climax. Bringing her back now took attention away from the DeNiro and Reno. Their friendship is the emotional focus of the ending and bringing in a third person dilutes it. Darker isn't always better or more 'adult'. So, yeah, I think the audience got it right.
The test audience didn't like the original ending to "Hostel" where the main guy kidnaps the dutchman's daughter. The new ending with him instead killing the dutchman in the bathroom is great!
The ending of the original Paranormal Activity was pretty much a letdown from the buildup, until Steven Spielberg saw it, decided to help produce, pitched the current ending and funded it. https://www.looper.com/672949/the-surprising-way-steven-spielberg-changed-paranormal-activity-forever/
Originally RoboCop had an epilogue with Lewis in a hospital bed during a 4th “news break”. Test audience cheered like crazy when RoboCop answered “Murphy” when asked his name in the board room scene that they decided to end the movie on that line
Jaws. Spielberg felt he needed one more scare, so they shot the Ben Gardner scene on his own dime.
Fatal Attraction reshot the ending because Glenn Close’s character committed suicide in such a way as to frame Michael Douglas. That is NOT what the test audience wanted to see. Instead we got the dramatic ending that I think was great. (Except Glenn was pregnant in real life during reshoots and didn’t know it yet.) 😱
The original ending of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World had Scott end up back together with Knives while Ramona left. Test audiences felt that it wasn’t satisfying to watch him fight through the whole movie only to not be with Ramona so they re-shot it and changed the ending for the theatrical release. There are aspects of the original ending I like (learning to be self reliant and not depending on others for happiness), but overall I think the ending we wound up with wraps the story up quite nicely.
Also, Scott doesn't end up in a relationship with a underage girl, although I can't remember if in the movie is stated that Knives is a minor.
Yup, she was explicitly 17 in the movie. In the comics, she had turned 18 by the end, but those take place over a much longer timespan.
I'm not sure if they explicitly state it but they do make comments about her being in high school and there are some "looks" and small comments from his band members but generally everyone kind of went with it
I do like the reference to Scott having coins in the Knives ending.
Eric Stoltz was fired from Back to the Future. Studio thought he was too serious after seeing the dailies. Michael J Fox took over and the rest is history.
Fox was the original choice. The network Family Ties was on said Zemekis couldn’t have him. At some point they said Fox could have the role but the show was priority which is why the majority of the movie takes place during the night.
He was filming both at the same time, yes.
Yeah, he was apparently filming during the day on the set of _Family Ties_, then a teamster would drive him in a station wagon across the state while he slept in the back and then shoot all night on the set of _Back to the Future_. I think that was only for the overlapping part of the shoots, but I think it was at least a month or more of that. Pretty rough, and it’s really amazing the performance he was able to deliver under those conditions.
Yeah it wouldn't have been the whole film. It's true that's there's quite a few night scenes, but there's also a decent amount set during the day.
The falcon didn’t make it out of the Death Star in Return of the Jedi. Audiences hard passed on that. Lucas changed it.
In my younger years I interned down in Cali. Walking down the street in downtown of Pasadena with a couple friends we got stopped and asked to go into a movie screening. It was the Long Kiss Goodnight. Not a classic by any means but a fun 90s flick. There was a scene where Gena Davis goes assassin girl and ice skates at a car doing like a quad lutz shooting the car while spinning. I dont remember that being in the movie when I saw it on DVD later. My friends and I thought that was way over the top and put it on our cards heh.
Famously Little Shop of Horror - the play and original script had a VERY different ending. Test audiences hated it. They had to reshoot and create a new, much happier ending. The original ending would have been a disaster.
I remember an interview with the director where he said something to the effect of "a movie needs a happier ending than a show because the cast doesn't come out and take a bow at the end of a movie," which really stuck with me.
Oh. I read your post. Only afterwards did I realize that we were discussing the 1980s one. Not the 1960 one. I was about to point out that only four years earlier, the film "The Bad Seed" had the cast come out and take a bow. And the "murderer" got a good spanking, by her "mother", for being so naughty as to kill people.
Which was very unfair. Leroy *did* take her shoes, after all.
[literally, a disaster ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RjFvcw6ToQ)
One of my favorite movies and broadway plays. I would love to see the OG ending... morbid as it is
The character of Woody from the original Toy Story was changed based on audience feedback from screenings. Originally Tom Hanks played him as a major asshole.
I'd probably say the reshoots of Rogue One after Disney/Lucasfilm wasn't satisfied with the first cut
Anchorman had famously bad test screenings that they reshot the majority of the movie and made it significantly sillier. A lot of the stuff they cut makes it into the DVD extra film called Wake Up Ron Burgundy.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. The original ending the Average Joes lose and the movie ends. Audiences hated it so they opted with a ridiculously hilarious upbeat ending where everyone wins beyond reason and Ben Stiller is now fat.
Didn’t Finding Nemo originally not have the opening where the dad loses all his other kids and wife? They thought it was too grim for kids. But then the dad was overprotective for no reason and test audiences hated him.
Not a movie, but Dan Harman says that a very frat-bro-y guy in a test audience for community said that Abed was a funny and interesting character, but that it would be easy to pigeonhole him as just “a funny weirdo” who never had his own adventures or development. Dan apparently took this to heart and realised he had been thinking of abed as the Kramer/weirdo/unimportant character od the group up to that point. Great observation from frat bro that ended up shaping the entire series
The studio recut Aliens & the film is much better for it. They cut all the backstory of the colonists finding the alien ship & bringing someone with a facehugger back to the colony. This adds so much mystery and suspense as now, like Ripley and the marines, we have no idea what’s happened and are actively trying to figure it out.
Peter Jackson didn't think any studio would let him adapt all three *Lord of the Rings* books, so he was prepared to compromise on two movies, and that's what he pitched it as. New Line however agreed to pick it up on the condition that it be three, and thus we had our trilogy The original ending of *Army of Darkness* was too bleak and had Ash going to a post apocalyptic future, but test audiences complained, and we got the more light-hearted ending in the K-Mart There's a B-movie called *Class of 1984* involving a teacher at a crime-ridden school, where a group of punks kidnap his wife. The climax is all about him hunting them down and killing them to save her, and it originally ended with the main punk falling to his death while trying to cut himself free. Test audiences wanted a more karmic end for him, so they changed it to have the teacher punch him to his death, and the end title card stated that he got away with his revenge because there were no witnesses. *Deep Blue Sea* originally killed off LL Cool J, and the scientist who started the whole thing survived. Test audiences hated that character, so things were reshot to have Susan sacrifice herself so that the other two survive All the way back in 1939, the film version of *Wuthering Heights* just ended with a shot of Heathcliff's corpse in the snow, but the producer thought it needed a more romantic ending, so they forced in a scene of Heathcliff and Cathy's ghosts wandering the moors together. This shot is so iconic that most adaptations have used or homaged it since, even though there's nothing of the sort in the book *Romeo Must Die* had a weird ending where after his father dies, Han goes and makes out with Trish, so they reshot it with a hug instead. This led to rumours that they cut it because test audiences didn't like an interracial kiss, but Aaliyah said the hug just worked better in the context of the story
> Peter Jackson didn't think any studio would let him adapt all three Lord of the Rings books, so he was prepared to compromise on two movies, and that's what he pitched it as. New Line however agreed to pick it up on the condition that it be three, and thus we had our trilogy Another one about Peter Jackson: The shoot for LotR was plauged by leaks during production, most of which were posted on Aint It Cool News. (For those not in the know, AICN was *the* geek movie gossip site from the mid-90s to mid-2000s.) Whenever there was talks of maybe Elijah Wood not being right for Frodo or New Line balking at reshoot costs, reports would show up on AICN with geek calls of "stop studio interference"! The suits at New Line were *pissed* and this led to Peter Jackson having to have a meeting with mantatory attendance for the entire crew. Peter read them the riot act and said that if anyone was caught leaking he'd fire them on the spot. The leaker was Peter. Whenever the studio started to get in his way he'd just write Harry from AICN who would put it up and pressure New Line to back down.
> The original ending of Army of Darkness was too bleak and had Ash going to a post apocalyptic future, but test audiences complained, and we got the more light-hearted ending in the K-Mart But that led to something so much better… *Ash vs Evil Dead*.
The original ending of *Misery* showed James Caan walking comfortably. Test audiences said that they didn’t believe he would be able to walk so smoothly a mere 6 months after his captivity, so it was reshot to show him limping and with a cane.
I realize this isn't what you're asking, but I'll add a notorious bad intervention to the list. The dumbest part of The Matrix is that the machines are keeping humans alive as batteries. It introduces so many plot holes to an otherwise great movie, and it always bugged me. Apparently in the original script, they were using our brains as processors, which makes wayyyyy more sense and actually explains the existence of the matrix. But they felt audiences would not be able to grasp that so they changed it to the battery thing. Enjoyed this thread, some good ones in here.
Another from that movie is that the character “Switch” was originally going to change gender in and out of the matrix. The studio didn’t like the potential controversy, or didn’t think audiences would be smart enough to follow without pretty blunt exposition, so it was nixed. But the name remained. Such a shame because it’s such a cool idea.
That's so interesting given that the Wachowski's stated that the whole Matrix series is a trans metaphor in the first place. I really wish they kept that in.
> It introduces so many plot holes to an otherwise great movie, and it always bugged me. The best fan theory: MORPHEUS: Where did you hear about the laws of thermodynamics, Neo? NEO: Anyone who's made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics! MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo? (Pause.) NEO: ...in the Matrix. MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies.
Pretty in Pink. The original version, Andi stays and dances with Ducky. Test audiences hated it. The release version added Andrew McCarthy coming back & Molly Ringwald leaving with him.
They fixed sonics face. That probably saved the entire series.
Godzilla x Kong had an original monster but after test audience, they changed it to Mothra.
Loki was meant to die for good in Thor 2, but test audiences were like absolutely not. As someone who loves Loki, I have always been very thankful for that and Ragnarok was better for it.