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00:00 Every good story needs a good ending and if you trip up when bowing out you can be rest
00:04 assured that people will remember that more than anything else you actually accomplished.
00:09 As a result endings in film are stressed over, often changing between scripts and production,
00:13 on set or after showing a group of people and asking them "what do you think?"
00:17 Whatever the reason though, the films we're talking about today have gone through changes
00:20 that very few people can say they've seen both sides of.
00:23 I'm Si for WhatCulture.com and these are 10 Movie Endings You Can No Longer See.
00:28 10.
00:29 Book of Shadows - Blair Witch 2
00:32 Whilst everyone remembers the Blair Witch project as the film that popularised the found
00:36 footage idea, one thing that remains unappreciated is the ambiguity of its ending.
00:41 Whilst its sequel largely forewent the shaky camera of the original, director Joe Berlinger
00:45 intended to keep a similar tone in Book of Shadows - Blair Witch 2.
00:49 After visiting the site of the original mysteries, a teenage group of ragtag Blair Witch fans
00:53 find themselves accused of murdering a group of tourists that they'd encountered on the
00:57 way.
00:58 The confusion saw the main cast plead not guilty, but have found videotape shows otherwise,
01:02 twisting the narrative that the film had shown us and leaving the audience questioning the
01:06 truth.
01:07 Furthermore, the film was given a purposeful linear narrative to give the story a descent
01:10 into madness feeling.
01:12 After Berlinger showed his film to the studio however, it seems as though they went about
01:15 changing just as much as they could muster.
01:18 In order to make it more contemporary, they requested more violence in the final act and
01:22 additional shots were filmed that sapped the intended ambiguity of the tourists' deaths.
01:26 The studio also cut the film's final scene into pieces and interspersed it throughout
01:30 the story, changing the film's linear descent into, well, a mess.
01:34 Thankfully, hardcore Blair Witch fans have done the best they can to restore Berlinger's
01:37 vision to decent results, but hindsight editing can't help the film's critical admonishment.
01:43 9.
01:44 Doctor Strangelove
01:46 Doctor Strangelove has one of cinema's most striking conclusions.
01:49 Faced with the looming reality of worldwide nuclear war, eccentric scientist Doctor Strangelove
01:54 rises unexpectedly from his wheelchair with a plan to stop the destruction and explosions
01:59 suddenly go off around the world.
02:01 Audiences were left with a sarcastic laugh of despair that no other film in its era could
02:05 achieve.
02:06 It also has one of the industry's most discussed alternative endings that is nearly too balmy
02:10 to be believed.
02:11 In the original script, the film continued with a pie fight in the Pentagon's war room.
02:16 This 1960s classic originally closed by parodying the warfront with a battle of cream and pastry.
02:21 So close was this to being the case that not only was it shot, it was also shown to test
02:25 audiences that included critics.
02:27 Director Kubrick felt that the final scene became too farcical, and worse yet, his actors
02:31 had lost focus in the fun of the pie throwing and had actually started laughing on camera.
02:36 The final nail came when a preview of the film was due to land on the same day as the
02:39 real-life assassination of John F. Kennedy.
02:42 The line in a scene that exclaimed "Our gallant young president has been struck down
02:45 and in his prime" suddenly felt too close to the bone.
02:48 Thus, Kubrick found the right point to cut the final scenes off of Strange Love, and
02:52 they haven't ever been seen since.
02:54 8.
02:55 Scream (2022)
02:57 It's rare that alternate endings are shot with the intention of never using them, but
03:01 that's exactly the case with the return to the world of Ghostface.
03:04 The 2022 Scream film brought back a series of actors from the series' heyday of the
03:08 1990s, including Sidney (Nev Campbell), Gail (Courtney Cox) and Dewey (David Arquette)
03:13 to fight against the return of Slasher Ghostface, and not all of them make it out alive.
03:18 Sacrificing himself for Tara, one of the new kids on the block for the franchise, Dewey
03:22 is stabbed to death.
03:23 Apparently this was a hot topic between the film crew and the studio.
03:26 During production, directing duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillette were asked to shoot an
03:31 alternate fate for the character.
03:33 As such, they decided to make it unusable.
03:35 The scene shown to the studio will likely never see the light of day, not just because
03:39 it doesn't serve the story, but it's apparently intentionally rubbish.
03:42 It consists of a badly framed over-the-shoulder shot of some doctor's legs, with the pair
03:46 offering the studio that this is where they could put a voiceover or something to say
03:50 that Dewey had surgery and survived.
03:52 A sneaky alternate ending made out of spite, and to make sure that their original vision
03:56 for the story stayed intact.
03:58 7.
04:00 Event Horizon
04:01 Event Horizon tells the story of a space anomaly that defies reality, showing unlucky bystanders
04:06 their greatest fears and possessing them in order to pull passing ships into its grasp.
04:11 After absolutely flopping upon release, the film's unexpected surge of DVD sales caught
04:15 the attention of both director Paul W.S.
04:17 Anderson and Paramount Pictures.
04:19 Hoping to capitalise, Anderson agreed to put together a director's cut.
04:23 The film's final moments see a fight between Miller and a resurrected Dr. Weir, possessed
04:27 by the now sentient Event Horizon ship.
04:29 This was not the only proposed ending, however, and one which involved Miller facing off with
04:34 the Burning Man he sees in his dreams, had tested negatively in front of audiences and
04:38 went unused.
04:39 However, the director's cut DVD never materialised and thus neither did this scene.
04:44 As to what became of the project in the ensuing years, Anderson said that it would never release,
04:48 due to the sheer fact that "most of it doesn't exist anymore".
04:52 In 2012, a VHS tape from the shooting of the movie was found that gave its cult audience
04:56 hope, but even today Anderson says that the project is indefinitely scrapped.
05:00 We can only assume that this mysterious VHS, presumably tucked away in Anderson's private
05:04 library, has the secrets that Event Horizon fans seek, and an alternate ending we'll
05:08 quite likely never see.
05:11 6.
05:12 Brazil
05:14 According to Universal, who were set to handle the US release of Terry Gilliam's Brazil,
05:18 the reactions from international and European audiences to the dystopian black comedy were
05:22 unsatisfactory.
05:23 Brazil's lead character Sam, who has spent the film struggling against a bureaucracy
05:27 that has pinned a string of terrorist attacks on him, ends the story thinking that he's
05:31 evaded his captors and avoided torture.
05:33 However, it's all revealed to be an illusion in his head.
05:36 As he stares, smiling madly into the middle distance and humming to himself, studio head
05:41 Sid Sheinberg demanded that the film be given a happier ending, cutting around the story
05:45 and reusing footage where possible so that love interest Jill survives and Sam makes
05:49 it out of the city to start a new life.
05:52 But the egg landed firmly on the face of Universal when, having screened his version to critics
05:56 in secret, Gilliam's Brazil won a plethora of awards.
06:00 It forced the studio's hand and they released it in its original edited format.
06:04 Ergo, the version of this film that you would struggle to see today is the Sid Sheinberg
06:08 cut.
06:09 It did appear on a Criterion DVD and LaserDisc of all things, but with technology moving
06:14 forward and not always so well preserved, it may be a matter of time before this version
06:19 and its sappier ending goes from hard to find to totally lost.
06:24 5.
06:26 Misery
06:27 A difference between the Stephen King novel Misery and the 1990 Rob Reiner directed movie
06:32 adaption became its most iconic moment.
06:34 In the book, crazed superfan Annie tries to stop the escape of her captured favourite writer
06:38 Paul Sheldon by removing his foot with an axe.
06:41 In order for Paul to come out of the motion picture version in a more triumphant way,
06:45 Reiner and company decided it might be best for Annie to simply smash Paul's ankle in
06:49 with a hammer.
06:50 Seems like Paul can't catch a break either way.
06:53 Almost certainly the smallest, most amusing, but keen-eyed change to ever come from a test
06:57 audience preview was the suggestion to reshoot the ending of Misery, where Paul, months later,
07:02 is haunted by his experiences.
07:04 Why?
07:05 Because, and I quote, "he needs to walk with a cane".
07:09 Paul was too healthy after his experiences and it was too much of a suspension of disbelief.
07:13 In all fairness, it's a good point, but it makes you wonder how many people called this
07:17 out because apparently it was enough of a pressing issue to fire up the production trucks
07:20 again as the scene was indeed re-shot.
07:23 It's presumably almost identical, except this time Paul gets a walking stick to lean on.
07:28 The 'caneless' ending of Misery is not really something we particularly need, and as such
07:32 it's something that has either been destroyed or locked away in a vault.
07:36 Regardless, it's a fun story and an anomaly in an otherwise drama-free production.
07:41 4.
07:42 World War Z
07:43 World War Z's lead character is fairly standard zombie movie stuff.
07:48 Brad Pitt's family man, Jerry, happens to be a former United Nations investigator, but
07:52 he's just trying to keep his family safe.
07:54 The closing moments of the film feature Jerry arriving in Wales to be reunited with his
07:57 wife and daughters, and a montage of sequences that show how humanity fights against the
08:01 zombie horde in the future.
08:03 It's more than a little odd as it sort of comes out of left field, leaving World War
08:07 Z without the big climax you'd expect from a big budget zombie flick.
08:11 Reason being is that this wasn't the intended conclusion, and that the montage we see features
08:15 already shot footage for the original and much darker ending.
08:18 An entire third act of the film saw Jerry fighting his way through the Russian tundra,
08:22 but when the studio was shown what was being pieced together they were unhappy with the
08:25 disconnect.
08:26 Jerry had gone from warm family man to a grizzled bearded zombie killing badass, and it didn't
08:31 really make a whole lot of sense.
08:33 Presented with options, they decided to come up with something else rather than Soldier
08:36 On.
08:37 Thus, the original ending of the film was never quite finished.
08:39 What did exist was excised into oblivion, with only thin slices featuring in the final
08:43 cut.
08:44 So whilst we can get a taste of what could have been, we can only wonder about the rest.
08:49 3.
08:50 Somewhere in Time
08:51 1980s romance fantasy flick Somewhere in Time is, by general consensus, a fine if not fairly
08:57 middle of the road film.
08:59 It explores time travel as obtained by hypnosis so that our lead character Richard Coolea,
09:04 portrayed by Christopher Reeve, can meet his otherwise unobtainable girl of his dreams
09:08 that he sees in an old photograph.
09:10 Something else that appears to be unobtainable is the original cut of the film.
09:13 Somewhere in Time ends with the death of its protagonist, and through the point of view
09:16 of the lens we see Coolea's spirit finally reunited with the woman he loves.
09:21 It's a fine ending, but according to Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells, it was much better
09:25 the way he remembers it.
09:26 Executing a technique that was rare in those days, Somewhere in Time originally ended with
09:30 an extraordinary and extra long tracking shot that led us through the halls of the hospital
09:35 and into the arms of Coolea's love, very slowly and very deliberately.
09:39 In the 1980s, with very little trickery available, the shot would have been incredibly hard to
09:43 capture.
09:44 According to the film's cinematographer Isadora Mankowski, Universal Studios thought
09:48 that it was too long and trimmed it down to a few edits, fading parts of the shot together
09:52 to get the point across quicker.
09:54 And then?
09:55 It appears they threw the reel in the bin, since as far as Mankowski knows, the original
09:59 version no longer exists.
10:01 2.
10:02 Dawn of the Dead
10:04 After being held up in a shopping mall for months following the end of the world, Dawn
10:08 of the Dead's surviving duo of Peter and Fran find themselves in jeopardy as raiding bikers
10:12 cause their safe haven to become suddenly far less safe.
10:15 With barriers and defences now down, hordes of zombies begin to pour up into the shopping
10:19 mall's offices.
10:20 Their once bunker and now home under attack, the two race to the roof to get aboard their
10:24 helicopter to make their uncertain journey onwards.
10:27 Whilst the version we've all seen ends ambiguously, the original script was a lot
10:31 darker and more definitive about things.
10:34 According to special effects guru Tom Savini, the suicide ending was indeed shot.
10:38 George A. Romero spent some years denying this before admitting in a DVD commentary
10:42 that some work had been done on it.
10:44 Evidence of it still exists in the film, making this the only entry on a list that you still
10:48 kind of see.
10:49 Peter puts a gun to his head for a moment and Fran's way out was to include deliberately
10:53 decapitating herself on the helicopter's blades, a chilling callback to an earlier
10:57 scene with an unfortunate zombie.
10:59 At the very least, knowing that the script called for Peter and Fran to commit suicide
11:02 makes the final scenes of Dawn make a lot more sense.
11:06 1.
11:07 Deep Blue Sea
11:09 Proving that the power that test audiences have, Deep Blue Sea not only has an original
11:13 ending that nobody has seen in 20 years, but also the choices made in exercising it actually
11:17 affect the finished product.
11:19 Susan McAllister, as played by Saffron Burrows, morphs throughout the film as a woman reaching
11:23 out to research shark brain tissue looking for the cure for Alzheimer's disease into
11:27 someone fighting for her life and killing off her specimens in order to save herself
11:31 and others.
11:32 In the original ending, Susan survives the ordeal.
11:34 Test audiences were apparently distraught as they had concluded that Susan was the real
11:38 villain of the piece, after all, if it wasn't for her work, the sharks wouldn't be attacking
11:42 at all.
11:43 Thus a one day reshoot occurred and thanks to some new CGI, Susan is gobbled up as she
11:47 tries to make her escape.
11:49 Is it penance for her so-called misgivings or a very sudden and brutal death for a character
11:54 who was caught in an unfortunate set of circumstances?
11:57 The jury is still out if the ending of Deep Blue Sea was the right call, but whatever
12:00 you think of Susan's fate, it's an interesting change to make.
12:03 Moreover, it's created an alternate ending that's been lost to time.
12:08 And that's the list.
12:09 Head down into the comments to let us know what you thought of this video.
12:13 Are any of these endings something you're dying to see?
12:16 And are there other alternative endings that you can no longer see that we missed?
12:20 Make sure you hit that like button, subscribe for more and hit the notification bell.
12:24 I'm Sy for whatculture.com and have a good week.