There’s a version of almost every major film that never made it to theaters. Somewhere in a studio vault, there’s a cut where the hero dies, the couple splits, or the monster wins. Most of those alternate endings exist because a room full of strangers sat down, watched a nearly finished movie, and made their feelings known on a comment card.
With so much money on the line, most studios reserve the right to choose the final cut of a film, which can be hugely influenced by preview audiences’ reactions. Today, roughly nine in ten widely released studio films undergo test screenings, with the average movie being tested three times. Sometimes the feedback is minor. Other times, it rewrites history.
Fatal Attraction (1987): Audiences Wanted Blood
The thriller about a man whose mistress becomes dangerously possessive initially ended with Alex taking her own life after making sure Dan’s fingerprints were all over the knife she used, essentially framing him for her murder. It was a psychologically coherent ending, true to the tone of everything that came before it. The only problem was that test audiences resented it.
Director Adrian Lyne balked at shooting a new ending in which Dan tries to drown Alex in a bathtub and then his wife Beth shoots her, so a studio executive offered him an extra $1.5 million to do it. The film remains one of the most successful thrillers of the 1980s, earning six Academy Award nominations. The now-iconic bathroom confrontation exists entirely because a preview audience demanded a more satisfying punishment for the villain.
Pretty in Pink (1986): The Crowd Started Booing
In the film’s original ending, Andie actually did come around to falling for her longtime best friend Duckie, who’d been in love with her the whole time, but test audiences wanted Andie to end up with Blaine, the upper-class guy. The test screenings had the audience so engaged that they were cheering throughout the movie, until the ending, when Duckie and Andie danced together, putting a definitive end to Andie and Blaine’s romance, at which point the crowd turned and began to boo.
As a result of such a visceral reaction, the ending was retooled to show Duckie giving his blessing and Andie getting her happy ending. This change sparked debates about whether Hughes betrayed his own message about class differences and authenticity, but the revised romantic conclusion better satisfied audience expectations for 1980s teen romance. The actor who played Duckie, Jon Cryer, had to wear a wig for the reshoots because he had already shaved his head for another project.
Little Shop of Horrors (1986): The Heroes Were Not Supposed to Survive
Director Frank Oz originally wanted his 1986 adaptation of the off-Broadway musical to end the same way the stage version does. In that version, the killer alien plant known as Audrey II prevails, eating both Seymour and his love interest Audrey, before attempting what amounts to a world conquest. Though executives were against it, Oz was given permission to shoot his version of the ending, and it stayed in the movie until test audiences saw it. Oz recalled that for every musical number there was applause, they loved it, it was just fantastic, until they killed the two leads. The theater became like a refrigerator, he said. The cards were awful, with audiences saying they hated seeing them die. The film needed a 55 percent recommendation score to be released, and it scored a 13.
Oz requested a second test screening just to make sure, and got the same response from a different audience. The verdict was in. He reshot a new ending in which Seymour electrocutes Audrey II and then lives happily ever after with Audrey, and that’s the version that wound up in theaters. The original dark ending was eventually restored and released as a bonus feature on Blu-ray.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994): A More Hopeful Farewell
The Shawshank Redemption was supposed to end with Red riding a bus towards the border to reunite with Andy in Zihuatanejo. Having shown Red’s difficulty in adjusting to life outside of prison, cutting to black after he violates parole to make a dash for Mexico would have been more ambiguous. During production, Castle Rock had insisted that director Frank Darabont shoot an ending where Red and Andy were reunited. Darabont was guaranteed final cut and was reluctant to include the ending until test screenings that included it showed it was the audience’s favourite scene.
The uplifting quality of the film, and particularly this ending, has inarguably made the film more popular over time. The film famously sits near the top of audience-voted film rankings to this day, which makes you wonder: would it have reached that status with a darker, more ambiguous close? Probably not.
First Blood (1982): Rambo Was Never Meant to Come Back
It might be hard to believe now, but First Blood was originally supposed to be a one-and-done affair, because John Rambo was originally supposed to die. Sylvester Stallone’s tortured Vietnam veteran was originally going to get killed at the end of his first and only movie. That’s what happens in David Morrell’s novel on which the film is based. The ending carried real weight and thematic purpose.
Test audiences felt deeply connected to the troubled veteran and hated seeing him go out that way. The filmmakers rewrote the ending so that Rambo survives and is taken into custody, a move that not only gave the character a future but also launched several sequels. Without that test screening, one of Hollywood’s most durable action franchises would simply never have existed.
Pretty Woman (1990): From Dark Drama to Fairy Tale
The original script by J. F. Lawton, titled 3000, ended with Vivian and her prostitute friend on the bus to Disneyland. The relationship between Vivian and Edward originally included Vivian being addicted to drugs; part of the deal was that she had to stay off cocaine for a week, and Edward eventually throws her out of his car and drives off. Back when the screenplay was titled 3000, the film was described as more along the lines of a “dark gritty art movie,” portraying Vivian as a hardcore drug addict and Edward as a borderline sociopath who considered her nothing more than a plaything.
Walt Disney Studios then-president Jeffrey Katzenberg insisted the film be rewritten as a modern-day fairy tale and love story, as opposed to the original dark drama. It was pitched to Touchstone Pictures and rewritten as a romantic comedy. Disney insisted that multiple endings for the film be shot and the winner would be picked based on the test audience’s reaction. The viewers went with the more upbeat ending, which certainly worked out, and Pretty Woman ended up being one of the highest-grossing movies of 1990.
Get Out (2017): Too Real for Comfort
In the theatrical release of the film, Chris is able to successfully get out from the cruel trap laid out for him, but that wasn’t Jordan Peele’s original plan. The movie’s original ending was significantly more depressing, highlighting the inescapable trappings of systemic racism as Chris finds himself arrested and imprisoned after his exhaustively traumatizing ordeal. According to Get Out producer Sean McKittrick, they tested the movie with the original ending where, when the cop shows up, it’s an actual cop and Chris goes to jail. The audience was absolutely loving it, and then it was like they punched everybody in the gut. You could feel the air being sucked out of the room.
After the film underwent test screenings, Peele changed his mind, and decided that both Chris and audiences deserved a happier ending. The film was a commercial success, grossing nearly $260 million against a $4.5 million budget, and received universal acclaim. At the 90th Academy Awards, it was nominated for four awards, winning Best Original Screenplay. The film’s tense police-siren moment still conveys the original ending’s message, just without following through on the darkness.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): Wrong Girl, Wrong Ending
It might be shocking to learn that Scott Pilgrim almost didn’t end up with Ramona Flowers. In the first cut of this cult favorite, Scott walked off into the sunset with Knives Chau, his fierce and loyal ex-girlfriend. When test audiences saw this version, the response was overwhelmingly negative. The problem wasn’t that the ending was poorly made, it was that it resolved the story in a way that felt emotionally wrong to nearly everyone watching.
Fans of the graphic novel, and even newcomers, wanted Scott to end up with Ramona, the girl whose baggage he’d fought so hard to conquer. Universal Pictures listened. Director Edgar Wright and his team reshot the ending, swapping Knives out for Ramona. This decision changed the movie’s whole vibe, making it feel truer to Bryan Lee O’Malley’s original comics. Not only did test audiences hate the original ending, but so did the actress playing Knives, who felt that her character shouldn’t get back together with someone who had treated her that way.
28 Days Later (2002): Jim Was Supposed to Die
In the original ending, Jim is seen dying from his wounds, and Selena and Hannah see that he is unlikely to make it, so they leave him to die alone. The ending is somber and essentially gives the audience no hope after the exhausting events of the film, which is exactly why this ending was changed. Danny Boyle’s intention was to push the bleakness to its furthest possible point.
After outrunning a horde of Rage-infected humans, Jim is shot while helping Selena and Hannah escape Major Henry West and his men. As his friends try to save him, he lies dying in a hospital bed, reflecting on how he wound up in a coma back at the beginning of the film. Test audiences rejected the hopelessness of that conclusion, and the film was reworked to give Jim a chance at survival. The final theatrical version, in which he recovers in a remote cottage, resonated far more deeply, leaving audiences with a faint but earned sense of hope rather than pure despair.
