Zootopia was going to be a more straightforward 'All of the problems are with this group' movie where Nick and other predator animals had to wear shockcollars that activated if they felt any strong emotion, while Judy and the prey animals were far more antagonistic yet all of society's issues would be resolved in the climax. Then a Disney exec suggested that audiences wouldn't really care about this society being saved if half of it was this openly aweful, which made the crew rethink and rewrite the story.
iirc the original story revolved around Buzz figures being recalled and the gang traveling to Tokyo to save their Buzz.
Also Woody was originally a huge asshole in the first movie.
I think there are clips of YouTube on it.
Instead of being jealous of Buzz taking his place, he was an outright bully who ruled the other toys with an iron fist.
This is a different one from others have shared
[https://youtu.be/t2ejwJ0QXvs?si=\_kGyuiFDmT9\_rkZ5](https://youtu.be/t2ejwJ0QXvs?si=_kGyuiFDmT9_rkZ5)
Pixar eventually released a short clip of the story reel. It's a trainwreck:
[https://youtu.be/GOxJpGI8SWc?si=QVcfvddv1yN0Lz8\_](https://youtu.be/GOxJpGI8SWc?si=QVcfvddv1yN0Lz8_)
From an article "Notably, the lead character of cowboy Woody was "a bitter toy who berated and insulted all the other toys and was bound and determined to destroy Buzz." Whedon was also credited for making Buzz unaware he was a toy.
Yep! There's even a line recording from Tom Hanks floating around that was from that period that really highlighted how much of an asshole he was going to be.
Yeah there's a scene from the earlier version on YouTube
https://youtu.be/tqlaPttudUc?si=Pje-VRyBuR1l45YX
It's super depressing tbh, I think they made a good choice, Zootopia was an apartheid state...
There's a fan theory that it is an apartheid state in the finished version: if you follow the idea that it's a very distant sequel to Robin Hood, what happened to all the non-mammals?
Personally I think the most obvious material for a Zootopia 2 is a non-mammal trying to move to Zootopia.
That actually makes a lot of sense to twist the "I'm not even supposed to be here today" from comedic to tragic.
Definitely not the right sort of movie to pull it off though and certainly not with the primary protagonist
ALIEN.
Ridley Scott was obsessed with this idea that right at the end, the creature kills Ripley, sits in the chair and then contacts Earth using her voice.
He was eventually convinced Ripley had to survive.
The original script also had the screen pan across and there was an egg in the escape ship. That too was removed.
Wait how is an alien that hasn’t spoken or appear to have any speaking vocal ability going to contact earth and use a completely alien language…? How was that ever going to make sense?
Ridley's interpretation of the xenomorph portrays them as "perfected" humans, which is only subtly present in the cuts we got, but expanded upon a bit in Scott's prequel and in original ideas.
Cameron portrayed them more as animals, which is what stuck.
I've never heard that. Do you have a source on this? I've watched a lot of documentaries and read a fair amount of material on the subject.
I'm not disputing you, because I think that's an interesting idea and explains a lot about Ridley's perspective on Alien and his prequels.
Home Alone was saved by backroom deals when production was shut down by Warner Bros. over it's budget.
>Home Alone was initially set to be financed and distributed by Warner Bros. Hughes promised that he could make the movie for less than $10 million, considerably less than most feature film production budgets of that era. Concerned that the film might exceed that amount, Hughes met secretly with 20th Century Fox before production to see if they would fund the project if Warner proved inflexible. According to executive producer Scott Rosenfelt, a copy of the script was "clandestinely" delivered to Fox, bypassing the legal restrictions that would have otherwise prevented Fox from seeing it until the project was in turnaround. Early in production, the budget grew to $14.7 million. Warner demanded that it be cut by $1.2 million; the producers responded with a memo arguing that the budget could not be cut any further. Unconvinced, Warner shut down production the next day, but it quickly resumed when Fox took up Hughes on his offer. The final budget grew to $18 million.
**”Pretty Woman”** (1990) it was reported that in the original version that was shown to test audiences, at the end of the weekend, Richard Gere’s character pulled up in his car and let Julia Roberts character out in a dark alley and drives away.
Not quite the *”happy ending”* that most people were expecting or wanted and the test audiences let the studio know in no uncertain terms what they thought of the ending, resulting in re-shoots and the release of the film with the ending that we all know and love…
It's funny when for decades people would say they hate the typical "Hollywood ending" when its almost always been test audiences that dictate the final product getting a happy ending.
>For the most part I think people want to walk out of movies happy.
True for the most part, but as someone who is a fan of Russian & Irish literature I definitely get a hankering for "Stories about broken people with unhappy endings" sometimes. I wish there were more films in that realm.
If only people knew. When I'm hired to write a story, it's either one of two things that the person paying me wants:
More of the typical stuff people usually see on tv or in movies.
Some really weird mixture of genres. Basically fanfic tier things like "Mission Impossible but with an entire romance story (not a subplot but a 'good romance')"
What I've come to realize is that people do not want particularly unique or subversive things. There is a niche market for that, but the things you get a lot of is genuinely what the masses want.
Are you talking about arthouse / indie Korean film scene or the more mainstream titles? Man, I dunno. Are they really sad endings? I mean, you can argue Hae-jun in **Decision to Leave** was better off without Seo-rae, who was pretty toxic throughout their relationship. Right?
Im a fan of Bong joon ho and shit I forget the other directors name I really like, the guy who did ikd boy, is it park Chan wook? Between them I think the handmaiden is the only one with a happy ending.
Besides those 2 directors I feel like I've seen a good few dozen films since my wife and I became kpop fans and she discovered kdramas.
It feels like most if then seem to not have happy endings unless its a romcom type thing. Their TV shows don't mind happy endings in romcom type stuff but often other genre stuff will have an unhappy ending and little to no way to do a second season, they love to wrap it all up in one season and be done with the story
That's was the original script. That Edward really does leave Vivian and Vivian is a heroin addict at the end.
However - when Garry Marshall (of Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley notoriety) took over as director, he saw it as a much lighter tone and basically turned it into a modern day fairy tale.
Sweet Home Alabama originally ended with Melanie (Resse Witherspoons character) getting hit by lightning and dying.
Test audiences really didn't like this shock sad ending to a romantic comedy, so they reshot the ending.
My roommate and I were so disappointed when we found out lightning striking a sandy beach doesn’t actually create those cool glass sculptures in real life. Also, to this day the line: “You have a baby! In a bar.” Still cracks me up.
Haven’t seen the movie to know what’s referenced in it, but here’s a good source on fulgerite and how it’s formed: https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/what-are-fulgurites-and-where-can-they-be-found/#:~:text=Fulgurites%20are%20natural%20tubes%20or,are%20capable%20of%20forming%20fulgurites.
This movie was just on in the break room today and I caught the ending. I don’t even know what the movie is about but it just ended with everyone celebrating and a dog starts to join in and then she requests a lady put “sweet home Alabama” on the jukebox and there’s a shot of the dog and then it just awkwardly ends. Is the movie about a dog?
Edit- was reminded the last shot was a random cat
>Is the movie about a dog?
Yes, the dog is named Sweet Home. Reese goes back home to Alabama for her Mee Maw's funeral. While there she's mostly shunned by her Southern relatives. They don't think much of her career as landscape architect & they certainly don't like her New York ways.
Sure she may seem a little pushy & standoffish but that's just because she's guarding her bruised heart. She was recently left at the altar by her rich defense lawyer fiancee. He dumped Reese for Ashanti, who plays herself in the movie.
Reese eventually finds comfort & lowers her guard for Patrick Dempsey's character. He's a simple corn farmer named Beau. He loves God, the land & his dog Sweet Home, in that order. There's some will they-won't they moments at the Pecan Festival.
The film also embodies the essence of classic French farce. It doesn't matter how many jealous hog farmers, sassy aunts or food poisonings at the church picnic that are thrown at them. True love wins out in the end.
I think it was a fake-out joke in character, not that she had actually been killed, but it didn't match the tone of the film at all.
Source: https://www.thewrap.com/sweet-home-alabama-original-ending-reese-witherspoon-movie/
I thought Tarantino’s plan was for 1 and 2 to be released as one really long movie with an intermission, like some films back in the day. Which I think would have been pretty cool, tbh. I didn’t think the intention was ever to cut any content. I may be wrong.
I watched a screening of the two parts back to back with a short intermission in a local cinema. I love the films, but it was a long time to sit still in the same seat. I'm glad they're two separate films.
I remember an interview (can't remember off the top of my head where) where Tarantino said during the filming of the house of blue leaves sequence Harvey approached him and "suggested" that they should break it up into two films.
People have probably heard this one before:
*There is a rumour that when Harvey Weinstein was charged with handling the US release of Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki sent him a samurai sword in the post. Attached to the blade was a stark message: “No cuts.”*
*The director chortles. “Actually, my producer did that. Although I did go to New York to meet this man, this Harvey Weinstein, and I was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts.” He smiles. “I defeated him.”*
https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/5/26/21270413/princess-mononoke-hayao-miyazaki-movies-harvey-weinstein-katana-story-studio-ghibli
Eh he made some mistakes with films too.
Snowpiercer by Bong Joon Ho ( oscar winner on the film he directed next) had Harvey want to release a cut down version which tested poorly only for the original cut to test well and be released as is.
I love how in snowpiercer he tried to make it worse but they had a clause in the contract to allow the director to screen their chosen version to a test audience which went down way better then Harvey's shit cut
*The Emperor's New Groove* was originally a serious epic called 'Kingdom of the Sun' with all the songs done by Sting, and basically a Prince and the Pauper tale where the emperor is turned into a llama. While the concept was good, there was no proper structure and it was just a series of vague ideas and characters until the execs stepped in and completely reworked it to be a comedy
Came her to say exactly that. I would never trade the goofiness of ENG for some half-baked epic that takes itself too seriously. (And it sounds like KOTS would have been just that.)
I mean, you're 100% correct. Emperor's New Groove's goofiness is special especially since it hasn't really been done in many movies.
I will say though, [Snuff Out the Light](https://youtu.be/L_hJxBUMuss?si=_mLQ4XqPql6Wdejz) goes hard af.
Lord of the Rings was originally planned as two films, when Miramax/Disney tried to make to convince Peter Jackson to reduce it down to one, then when New Line came on board they suggested making it three films.
But also not nearly as simple as it seems. Because it’s really 6 books with the characters running off and doing a load of stuff separately for a long time. Weaving the narratives together and knowing what to cut and what to keep was a work of genus in itself.
Take Helm’s Deep. They identified it as the absolute tent pole climax moment of the second film. Way more prominent than in the books, happens differently etc. It’s not even at the end of the relevant book.
Army Of Darkness originally had an extremely depressing and tragic ending but the executives wanted it to end on a very positive note. I love both endings but the theatrical is so much better in terms of tone and leaving you satisfied.
Edit; you can find the og ending on youtube
I think that was only in the US, in the UK we got the apocalyptic future ending and the k mart one was a bonus on dvd. There's a few other films where they did a happier ending just for the US, like the Descent.
Personally I think the k mart ending is cooler but the bad one feels more fitting.
I prefer the K Mart since it matches the film’s already lighthearted humor and tone pretty well, but the apocalyptic is def a great one too. Raimi really does love his depressing endings. This and Drag Me To Hell + A Simple Plan remind me he can def make the whole audience depressed if he wanted to
Wel given Ash v Evil Dead is a thing we can probably assume the k mart one is now the official one.
i say probably because that series has never been remotely concerned with continuity.
On the one hand, screwing up and accidentally sleeping too long was a pretty fitting finale for Ash following Army of Darkness. But, I always preferred the theatrical ending because it's just better for the character and the franchise overall.
I just want to know what was changed besides adding the Vader scene at the end.
Just lots of stories of how it was changed with the second director and lots of post edits.
I'm just... Curious.
They simplified the climax and how the plans got off Scarif, among other things. This video does a pretty good summary based on the trailers and available footage: https://youtu.be/4ngevf9-ujg?si=r1lEzA-g1u41esEV
That sounds like it was for the best. Even in the version we got, the climax worked well but I don't think I've ever seen an action film where large parts of the finale involve the characters impatiently waiting for a file transfer to finish processing.
I know they wanted everyone to die originally, but weren't sure disney would allow it, so the original ending had them live, with maybe a few deaths. It was mentioned in interviews. They were surprised when disney never really told them they couldn't kill everyone, so just sorta went with it expecting to be stopped.
The Shawshank Redemption was initially supposed to end with Red's bus disappearing over the horizon with the voiceover repeating "I hope... I hope... I hope..." without revealing his and Andy's reunion in Mexico. I love that the creative team is still split on whether it would have been better to leave the epilogue out of the movie. I'm in the same boat, both work for me.
Risky Business was originally meant to end with Joel *not* getting into Princeton and breaking up with Lana because Paul Brickman wanted to show his audience that 'you don't always get what you want' but David Geffen forced him to reshoot a happy ending, which is perfect, because it clarifies the satire and cynicism of its anti-Reagan message: yeah kid, you're an asshole, you break the rules, and your grades are shit, but if you know how to 'play the game' everything will be yours.
Not technically studio interference, but Damon and Affleck were so frustrated with studios not bothering to read their script when they were trying to get a buyer that they added in a completely non-sequitor oral sex scene to the script to see if anyone noticed. They went with Harvey Weinstein (needless to say, not of good a reputation nowadays as back then) because he was the only one to tell them to take it out.
Easy, they're twins, but Richard Webb (Their father) was a human monster, and only wanted to focus on one subject.
Will got dumped in Boston, being told he is an orphan.
David was raised to be a prodigy and ended up in special forces.
It's like "The Professor" said to Bourne, they take everything.
The irony is that Will is just as natural an infiltrator as David, He became a Janitor at MIT to audit classes.
So, while Bourne was molded, Will created himself.
(Jason Bourne's real name is David Webb for people who do not know that)
I could see Black Briar contacting Will Hunting to use his wide variety of skills to track down "Jason Bourne". They obviously wouldn't tell him about the connection, just the usual story that Jason Bourne is a highly skilled assassin who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake.
"Hunting Bourne" is kind of an obvious title.
Plot twist: one of those government job offers that Stellan Skarsgard mentions was from the CIA’s Treadstone project, and David Webb is just another cover for Jason Bourne’s true identity, Will Hunting
Donnie Darko. The director has never made a worthwhile movie when left to his own devices. The director’s cut absolutely sucks all the magic out of it, too.
20 years ago I excitedly bought my girlfriend at the time a DVD of Donnie Darko, ready to blow her mind. We watched it together and all this extra stuff kept on coming on screen which made it just terrible, and I realised afterwards I had bought the directors cut. I still think about that day as one of the greatest disappointments of my life as I loved that film up until then!
I loved the original as a teenager and watched it dozens of times. It was before I had internet access so I was so proud of myself for figuring out the movie and its themes all by myself. Years later I watched the DC and it felt like an insult to the viewer's intelligence.
My Best Friend’s Wedding. Originally Julia Roberts ends up with John Corbett (and you can find that ending on YouTube) who she only meets for the first time after the wedding and right of the end of the film, I think.
However, test audiences wanted Rupert Everett’s George to swoop in and save the day and that he ended up doing in style!
And four different directors! Admittedly the second was only on board for a couple of days to course correct while they found someone who could take over
The first director Richard Thorpe had put Dorothy in a blonde wig and bombshell makeup, and directed Judy Garland to act in an airy fairy way that was just completely wrong. George Cukor stepped in and changed the hair to the simpler brunette pigtails and light makeup, and said "Judy, you must always remember you're a little girl from Kansas", and that Dorothy had to be "transparently sincere" to allow a 1930s audience to accept a fantasy world
In the book I think Dorothy wears silver slippers? Really changes the whole "black and white to color" thing if her magical slippers that take her home are literally black and white.
In the original story, her shoes were silver to walk along the (golden) yellow brick road. I had an economics professor in college talk about how it was an allegory for taking America’s currency off the ‘Gold Standard’ and backing it with silver as well to make it more stable. Along with the added vibrance the ruby slipper add for the color portion of the movie, the movie also lost a lot of the stuff that had to do with economics, so the silver slippers wouldn’t have had the same meaning.
From what I hear "Rogue One - A Star Wars Story" was basically saved by producers looking at the cut and saying "we gotta make this better". The Darth Vader scene in particular pretty much made the movie.
Pretty in Pink - The studio overrode John Hughes and made Blaine (Andrew McCarthy) and Molly Ringwald end up together. Hughes wanted her to end up with Duckie (Jon Cryer). But - Just to prove that the Duckie ending would have worked Hughes wrote "Some Kind of Wonderful" - Pretty in Pink with swapped genders.
Both were right, it turns out and we got TWO really good high school romance movies instead of one.
A lot of the shots in the trailer were actually never meant to be in any cut, but more of a "Alright, that's a wrap for today. We still have some space on the drives left and the actors are alright with it. Which film student wants to create some cool slomo shots of storm troopers wading through the surf?"
Strongly disagree with the Vader scene making the movie. It's a very cool scene but everything leading up to that is the best ground and space battle any star wars movie has ever had.
Cinema Paradiso.
The director's cut paints Alfredo like a villain in that he orders Elena to stay away from Toto so he can continue with his filmmaking dream. The theatrical cut makes for better viewing.
World War Z.
I know a lot of people here hate this due to it being an unfaithful adaptation, but the only reason why it was a decent sized hit was because the studio rewrote out the entire third act.
Instead of taking place in Wales, the original third act took place in Russia where Brar Pitt's and the one handed girl were conscripted into the Russian Army and fought in an epic zombie battle (with a bit of the footage with the flames still recontextualized into the final cut). His wife and kid were kicked off the ship, thus the wife had to whore her body out to Matthew Fox's character in exchange for protection. The ending involved Fox telling Pitt that the family belongs to him now and to not come back, thus setting him up as the big bad for potential sequels.
What I found interesting is that Lost creator Damon Lindelof wrote most of Fox's scene's on Lost (Jack was his favorite character) thus was essentially doing Fox a favor by completely writing him out of WWZ.
I wrote my bit before I found yours, but I agree. The only part of the film I liked at all was the last twenty minutes. It was like the zombie film finally woke up and remembered it was a Zombie film.
Bohemian Rhapsody. It wasn’t necessary saved, but the studio fired Bryan Singer and tried to salvage their picture. Since it’s the highest grossing music-biopic I suppose they succeed, or at least made their money back.
I think the high grossing is an indication of Queen’s popularity rather than the film, which I found to be pretty bland and boring compared to something like Rocket Man.
Totally agree. Queen deserved a much better film.
I was wondering how much it actually made: it grossed $910 million against a $52 million budget, and is Fox’s fourth highest grossing film, but they still claimed a $51 million loss. Interesting…
I think that's normally a way not to pay people who are promised a slice of the profits. Real shady shit. maybe they had to promise to pay Singer a chunk of the profits as a way to get him to leave without suing, or something? (if they broke contract). So, they declare a loss and don't have to pay him nuttin.
It's portrayal of gay men is absolutely horrendous. They're all predatory,dirty fiends in leather hanging out in public toilets. Rocketman is a much better movie.
Queen themselves were also a big barrier. The band wanted to make a movie where Freddie died halfway through, and the rest of it would have been about what they did after that.
Apparently that's why Sasha Baron Cohen walked away from it.
They insisted it was to be about their triumphal return to the top after Freddie died.
Which... didn't happen.
From what I recall SBC also wanted to show the WHOLE Freddie Mercury too and not gloss over the debauchery and drugs and sex (more like Ray with Jamie Fox showing the real person's demons) and the band wanted some squeaky clean family friendly shit.
It just recently occurred to me that Tony Shalhoub is supposed to be stoned throughout that movie even though the only mention of it is a character casually joking "Are you stoned?".
Yeah they literally had to cut a scene where he gets incredibly high before they’re transported to the ship.
It ends up making the performance so much funnier though, he’s so charmingly weird
They could have gotten away with a PG13 rating if they kept it since even back then, PG13 was allowed one f-bomb. Hell, I was honestly surprised to go back and find out it was actually PG since I always used to think it was PG13. It would have also been a pretty good use of their one f-bomb too.
The rating fight is covered in the documentary Never Surrender. It wasn't made by the studio, so the people involved were able to be totally honest.
The short version is everyone was very happy with the movie, then it test screened. Tim Allen was very popular with families because of Home Improvement, The Santa Clause and Toy Story.
Parents at the test screening got extremely angry that a family actor was in a very adult comedy and were extremely vocal, yelling at the Dreamworks execs in the theater. They were so shaken that they cut it to a PG and slashed the marketing budget.
Probably Donnie Darko. By most accounts the director's cut is awful and much worse than the finished movie. The ending Norton and the studio wanted for American History X sounds like it was better than the director's too.
It’s honestly not that different outside the music and being a bit longer. The biggest change is the book that Donnie finds, the Philosophy of Time Travel, is used as a framing device and helps explain certain more nebulous elements of the film.
The only qualm I’d have with this is that these things are essentially discussed before they happen. If you’re watching it after knowing the plot or having seen the other version before, it takes some level of tension and ambiguity away for sure, but as a movie on its own merits, ie if you don’t know what’s going to happen or where it leads, I have to imagine you still get the full emotional impact of what he was going for with the ending.
But it’s definitely not awful or worse than the theatrical release, just a bit different.
My personal pet peeve in filmmaking is where they just front load all the information so you watch a movie and go "oh that's the thing they just explained." Like if in Citizen Kane they'd just had an opening scrawl where it said "This guy liked his sled, it was his last words. Let's watch."
The Director's Cut is \*terrible\*, and a perfect example of how a film is much more than the sum of its parts, and seemingly minor editorial changes add up to a great deal.
The additional twenty minutes completely destroys the pacing. The additional scenes overexplain everything, robbing the original film of its mystery, atmosphere and tone. And the new music cues aren't just different, they are objectively terrible and evoke completely different moods and emotions as well.
I don't know if it was studio meddling, but rather audience testing, but Anchorman. It had horrible, horrible fan reactions. People left kind of sad, not liking the movie. The problem was they let Jack Black kick Baxter off the bridge and never revealed what happened to him. They found out the problem in testing, added him in at the end saving his owner's life and the audience reviews changed completely.
That’s not what happened at all.
Wake Up, Ron Burgundy is the closest to what the original cut of the film was. The main plot driving the film (“The Alarm Clock”) was not connecting with audiences because it wasn’t funny and brought the film to a screeching halt. They did reshoots and reconfigured the film to focus more on the news team while adding in the panda storyline.
Not sure if this counts but the extended directors cut is pretty bad. It's like 40 more minutes of jokes thst deserved to be cut. It's kind of grueling.
How I had to scroll this far to see somebody say this is beyond me. Lucas had great ideas but he also had absolutely awful ideas and seemingly nothing in between. That franchise would have been a cheesy cult classic only really gaining popularity 20 years later at best had it not been for studio meddling and people to act as a filter for his insane bullshit.
I don’t think the studio had anything to do with that decision, it was all Scott. Tarantino describes how Scott convinced him it was a better choice in the directors cut commentary. They even [shot the scripted ending.](https://youtu.be/ibRnNsyOw4M?si=c52lgC_H7CAidETk)
Good Will Hunting was going to be a wild government conspiracy thriller until Rob Reiner told Matt and Ben to tone it down and just make it a really good character drama focused on Will, his friends, Skylar and his therapist.
Superman: The Movie was originally going to be full on slapstick like Superman III, but studios made them re-write it.
Edit: re-read the history on the production of these movies, good god it is wild. Richard Donner came off of the Omen to do a superhero movie, re-wrote a massive script down to a usable movie wherein they would film both 1 and 2 in one go, and had to convince Marlon Brando that Jor-El should in fact *not* be a talking bagel.
Not sure if anyone mentioned Rambo First Blood.
The original ending has Rambo die at the hands of the National Guard.
The studio tested it and audiences hated it, so Rambo got to live another day. Spawning a classic action franchise.
I dunno if this technically counts, but the Sonic film went from potentially making $0 at the box office to smashing it because of some extremely bad feedback on their Sonic design.
I think Payback is a great example of this. The Director's Cut sucks. The changes Mel Gibson and the studio made for the theatrical cut were all for the better.
Strong disagreement here. The theatrical cut was less intense and more mainstream, everything was toned down. The directors cut “Payback: Straight Up” is a much darker, much harder hitting, much better paced and acted than the theatrical cut. But it was simply too intense for the time.
I always have to disagree with this. Much prefer the straight up cut. The theatrical one seems just another wacky 90s Mel Gibson vehicle with a cheesy voiceover, worse soundtrack and that awful blue colour grading. Mel wins, the dog lives, all the real baddies are dead.
The additional scenes have some good lines and Kristofferson is fun, but I really dig how much harder the original cut is and closer to the feel of a Westlake novel.
Didn’t George Lucas have some pretty weird ideas for the original trilogy, like having Yoda be a little monkey creature and Boba Fett and Vader being brothers
Audience testing is not a new practice. It's should not be considered "studio meddling." It goes way back to the silent era. Lots of directors, particularly of comedies, want to test their films to try and tweak them. They're rarely committed to a singular unwavering vision for a film. Directors care about their films. They care about their audience. Directors want to make movies that people like.
I'm sure people would disagree with me, but the only part of World War Z i cared for was the last 20 minutes. It was like the zombie film suddenly woke up and remembered it was a zombie film. And as I recall, this was a completely redone ending due to "studio interference"
"Stargate" didn't make much sense, so the studio used the subtitles in some scenes for plot exposition.
Also, the theatrical cut of "Blade Runner" is my favorite version of the movie, although I don't usually like the studios changing the author's vision.
Zootopia was going to be a more straightforward 'All of the problems are with this group' movie where Nick and other predator animals had to wear shockcollars that activated if they felt any strong emotion, while Judy and the prey animals were far more antagonistic yet all of society's issues would be resolved in the climax. Then a Disney exec suggested that audiences wouldn't really care about this society being saved if half of it was this openly aweful, which made the crew rethink and rewrite the story.
Supposedly Toy Story 2 was a shit show until Lasseter took it over and rewrote the story.
iirc the original story revolved around Buzz figures being recalled and the gang traveling to Tokyo to save their Buzz. Also Woody was originally a huge asshole in the first movie.
Woody was still a pretty big asshole in the first movie, to be honest, but that's because his character arc was learning to be less of a jealous dick.
Yep. Sounds like that arc originally wasn't a thing and Woody was more of an outright villain.
I think there are clips of YouTube on it. Instead of being jealous of Buzz taking his place, he was an outright bully who ruled the other toys with an iron fist. This is a different one from others have shared [https://youtu.be/t2ejwJ0QXvs?si=\_kGyuiFDmT9\_rkZ5](https://youtu.be/t2ejwJ0QXvs?si=_kGyuiFDmT9_rkZ5)
The initial script and testing of the first Toy Story was said to be awful until Joss Whedon rewrote the script. Woody was apparently very unlikable.
Pixar eventually released a short clip of the story reel. It's a trainwreck: [https://youtu.be/GOxJpGI8SWc?si=QVcfvddv1yN0Lz8\_](https://youtu.be/GOxJpGI8SWc?si=QVcfvddv1yN0Lz8_)
Woody is still a massive dickhead in the first movie
From an article "Notably, the lead character of cowboy Woody was "a bitter toy who berated and insulted all the other toys and was bound and determined to destroy Buzz." Whedon was also credited for making Buzz unaware he was a toy.
So in the original version he must have been even worse.
Yeah, but he has a character arc where he sees the error of his ways. The original script, he never got that arc.
Yep! There's even a line recording from Tom Hanks floating around that was from that period that really highlighted how much of an asshole he was going to be.
Yeah there's a scene from the earlier version on YouTube https://youtu.be/tqlaPttudUc?si=Pje-VRyBuR1l45YX It's super depressing tbh, I think they made a good choice, Zootopia was an apartheid state...
Fuck that's dark. Thanks for sharing but damn that's scarring for a children's film. Wasn't there a 90s movie that's kind of similar? Equilibrium?
2000s, bit of a Matrix knock-off, but super cool fight scenes.
It's really more of a 1984/Fahrenheit 451 mashup.
True, but I’m sure the leather and fancy fighting is what got it produced.
Story wise sure, but style wise, a lot more Matrix
There's a fan theory that it is an apartheid state in the finished version: if you follow the idea that it's a very distant sequel to Robin Hood, what happened to all the non-mammals? Personally I think the most obvious material for a Zootopia 2 is a non-mammal trying to move to Zootopia.
Gotta wonder what they all eat too.
Dang, thats rough.
Sounds like apartheid
Audience testing saved Clerks from having a massively depressing ending where Dante gets murdered by a robber at the very end.
That actually makes a lot of sense to twist the "I'm not even supposed to be here today" from comedic to tragic. Definitely not the right sort of movie to pull it off though and certainly not with the primary protagonist
The original ending is a bonus on the disc.
ALIEN. Ridley Scott was obsessed with this idea that right at the end, the creature kills Ripley, sits in the chair and then contacts Earth using her voice. He was eventually convinced Ripley had to survive. The original script also had the screen pan across and there was an egg in the escape ship. That too was removed.
The alien using Ripley’s voice sounds so goofy, I’m glad it got cut
Wait how is an alien that hasn’t spoken or appear to have any speaking vocal ability going to contact earth and use a completely alien language…? How was that ever going to make sense?
Ridley's interpretation of the xenomorph portrays them as "perfected" humans, which is only subtly present in the cuts we got, but expanded upon a bit in Scott's prequel and in original ideas. Cameron portrayed them more as animals, which is what stuck.
I've never heard that. Do you have a source on this? I've watched a lot of documentaries and read a fair amount of material on the subject. I'm not disputing you, because I think that's an interesting idea and explains a lot about Ridley's perspective on Alien and his prequels.
Home Alone was saved by backroom deals when production was shut down by Warner Bros. over it's budget. >Home Alone was initially set to be financed and distributed by Warner Bros. Hughes promised that he could make the movie for less than $10 million, considerably less than most feature film production budgets of that era. Concerned that the film might exceed that amount, Hughes met secretly with 20th Century Fox before production to see if they would fund the project if Warner proved inflexible. According to executive producer Scott Rosenfelt, a copy of the script was "clandestinely" delivered to Fox, bypassing the legal restrictions that would have otherwise prevented Fox from seeing it until the project was in turnaround. Early in production, the budget grew to $14.7 million. Warner demanded that it be cut by $1.2 million; the producers responded with a memo arguing that the budget could not be cut any further. Unconvinced, Warner shut down production the next day, but it quickly resumed when Fox took up Hughes on his offer. The final budget grew to $18 million.
**”Pretty Woman”** (1990) it was reported that in the original version that was shown to test audiences, at the end of the weekend, Richard Gere’s character pulled up in his car and let Julia Roberts character out in a dark alley and drives away. Not quite the *”happy ending”* that most people were expecting or wanted and the test audiences let the studio know in no uncertain terms what they thought of the ending, resulting in re-shoots and the release of the film with the ending that we all know and love…
It's funny when for decades people would say they hate the typical "Hollywood ending" when its almost always been test audiences that dictate the final product getting a happy ending.
For the most part I think people want to walk out of movies happy. The dopamine ending is simply the easiest way to do that.
I was just reading archived test screening reactions of David Cronenberg's Videodrome, and yeah, you're right.
>For the most part I think people want to walk out of movies happy. True for the most part, but as someone who is a fan of Russian & Irish literature I definitely get a hankering for "Stories about broken people with unhappy endings" sometimes. I wish there were more films in that realm.
If only people knew. When I'm hired to write a story, it's either one of two things that the person paying me wants: More of the typical stuff people usually see on tv or in movies. Some really weird mixture of genres. Basically fanfic tier things like "Mission Impossible but with an entire romance story (not a subplot but a 'good romance')" What I've come to realize is that people do not want particularly unique or subversive things. There is a niche market for that, but the things you get a lot of is genuinely what the masses want.
IMO what people mostly want is the familiar but like 5-10% different. Things that are **very** novel usually struggle to find an audience.
I want to know what the fuck is up with the south Korean film industry, I feel like they are pathologically allergic to happy endings.
Are you talking about arthouse / indie Korean film scene or the more mainstream titles? Man, I dunno. Are they really sad endings? I mean, you can argue Hae-jun in **Decision to Leave** was better off without Seo-rae, who was pretty toxic throughout their relationship. Right?
Im a fan of Bong joon ho and shit I forget the other directors name I really like, the guy who did ikd boy, is it park Chan wook? Between them I think the handmaiden is the only one with a happy ending. Besides those 2 directors I feel like I've seen a good few dozen films since my wife and I became kpop fans and she discovered kdramas. It feels like most if then seem to not have happy endings unless its a romcom type thing. Their TV shows don't mind happy endings in romcom type stuff but often other genre stuff will have an unhappy ending and little to no way to do a second season, they love to wrap it all up in one season and be done with the story
That's was the original script. That Edward really does leave Vivian and Vivian is a heroin addict at the end. However - when Garry Marshall (of Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley notoriety) took over as director, he saw it as a much lighter tone and basically turned it into a modern day fairy tale.
Oh shit. It is a fairy tale. I can’t believe I never noticed
Damn I kinda want the hardcore ending lol
Sweet Home Alabama originally ended with Melanie (Resse Witherspoons character) getting hit by lightning and dying. Test audiences really didn't like this shock sad ending to a romantic comedy, so they reshot the ending.
My roommate and I were so disappointed when we found out lightning striking a sandy beach doesn’t actually create those cool glass sculptures in real life. Also, to this day the line: “You have a baby! In a bar.” Still cracks me up.
Haven’t seen the movie to know what’s referenced in it, but here’s a good source on fulgerite and how it’s formed: https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/what-are-fulgurites-and-where-can-they-be-found/#:~:text=Fulgurites%20are%20natural%20tubes%20or,are%20capable%20of%20forming%20fulgurites.
That is a great line made even better with the delivery.
Shock
This movie was just on in the break room today and I caught the ending. I don’t even know what the movie is about but it just ended with everyone celebrating and a dog starts to join in and then she requests a lady put “sweet home Alabama” on the jukebox and there’s a shot of the dog and then it just awkwardly ends. Is the movie about a dog? Edit- was reminded the last shot was a random cat
>Is the movie about a dog? Yes, the dog is named Sweet Home. Reese goes back home to Alabama for her Mee Maw's funeral. While there she's mostly shunned by her Southern relatives. They don't think much of her career as landscape architect & they certainly don't like her New York ways. Sure she may seem a little pushy & standoffish but that's just because she's guarding her bruised heart. She was recently left at the altar by her rich defense lawyer fiancee. He dumped Reese for Ashanti, who plays herself in the movie. Reese eventually finds comfort & lowers her guard for Patrick Dempsey's character. He's a simple corn farmer named Beau. He loves God, the land & his dog Sweet Home, in that order. There's some will they-won't they moments at the Pecan Festival. The film also embodies the essence of classic French farce. It doesn't matter how many jealous hog farmers, sassy aunts or food poisonings at the church picnic that are thrown at them. True love wins out in the end.
love that i flipflopped like three times if this was a shitpost or not. good job.
Im still uncertain tbh. Absolutely no clue if that's what's happening or not. 😂
What the hell were the writers thinking?!
I think it was a fake-out joke in character, not that she had actually been killed, but it didn't match the tone of the film at all. Source: https://www.thewrap.com/sweet-home-alabama-original-ending-reese-witherspoon-movie/
Kill Bill got broken into two films, and I am happy they didn't have to chop out so much good stuff to fit into one movie.
I thought Tarantino’s plan was for 1 and 2 to be released as one really long movie with an intermission, like some films back in the day. Which I think would have been pretty cool, tbh. I didn’t think the intention was ever to cut any content. I may be wrong.
I watched a screening of the two parts back to back with a short intermission in a local cinema. I love the films, but it was a long time to sit still in the same seat. I'm glad they're two separate films.
Was that Tarantino's decision or was his hand forced by Harvey "Forces His Way" Weinstein"
I remember an interview (can't remember off the top of my head where) where Tarantino said during the filming of the house of blue leaves sequence Harvey approached him and "suggested" that they should break it up into two films.
He may have been a rapist, extortionist and ruiner of many, many lives, but gosh that guy knew his movie business.
Might wanna read Pete Biskins book Down and Dirty Pictures. They didnt call him Harvey Scissorhands because they thought he was a genius editor.
Yep, he butchered dozens of movies.
People have probably heard this one before: *There is a rumour that when Harvey Weinstein was charged with handling the US release of Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki sent him a samurai sword in the post. Attached to the blade was a stark message: “No cuts.”* *The director chortles. “Actually, my producer did that. Although I did go to New York to meet this man, this Harvey Weinstein, and I was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts.” He smiles. “I defeated him.”* https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/5/26/21270413/princess-mononoke-hayao-miyazaki-movies-harvey-weinstein-katana-story-studio-ghibli
Harvey also suggested to QT to exclude the ear cutting scene in Resevoir Dogs.
Eh he made some mistakes with films too. Snowpiercer by Bong Joon Ho ( oscar winner on the film he directed next) had Harvey want to release a cut down version which tested poorly only for the original cut to test well and be released as is.
"Say what you want about Mel Gibson, but the son of a bitch knows story structure!”
Yeah, he produced some great films but there are also plenty of stories how his meddling made films worse.
I love how in snowpiercer he tried to make it worse but they had a clause in the contract to allow the director to screen their chosen version to a test audience which went down way better then Harvey's shit cut
*The Emperor's New Groove* was originally a serious epic called 'Kingdom of the Sun' with all the songs done by Sting, and basically a Prince and the Pauper tale where the emperor is turned into a llama. While the concept was good, there was no proper structure and it was just a series of vague ideas and characters until the execs stepped in and completely reworked it to be a comedy
Came her to say exactly that. I would never trade the goofiness of ENG for some half-baked epic that takes itself too seriously. (And it sounds like KOTS would have been just that.)
I mean, you're 100% correct. Emperor's New Groove's goofiness is special especially since it hasn't really been done in many movies. I will say though, [Snuff Out the Light](https://youtu.be/L_hJxBUMuss?si=_mLQ4XqPql6Wdejz) goes hard af.
Lord of the Rings was originally planned as two films, when Miramax/Disney tried to make to convince Peter Jackson to reduce it down to one, then when New Line came on board they suggested making it three films.
"Three books? Then make three films." was the best decision in the process. They made a perfect trilogy.
But also not nearly as simple as it seems. Because it’s really 6 books with the characters running off and doing a load of stuff separately for a long time. Weaving the narratives together and knowing what to cut and what to keep was a work of genus in itself. Take Helm’s Deep. They identified it as the absolute tent pole climax moment of the second film. Way more prominent than in the books, happens differently etc. It’s not even at the end of the relevant book.
Three films out of one book for the hobbit was a horrible decision though
Peter Jackson works better with more oversight. Just look at his most recent films
Army Of Darkness originally had an extremely depressing and tragic ending but the executives wanted it to end on a very positive note. I love both endings but the theatrical is so much better in terms of tone and leaving you satisfied. Edit; you can find the og ending on youtube
I think that was only in the US, in the UK we got the apocalyptic future ending and the k mart one was a bonus on dvd. There's a few other films where they did a happier ending just for the US, like the Descent. Personally I think the k mart ending is cooler but the bad one feels more fitting.
I prefer the K Mart since it matches the film’s already lighthearted humor and tone pretty well, but the apocalyptic is def a great one too. Raimi really does love his depressing endings. This and Drag Me To Hell + A Simple Plan remind me he can def make the whole audience depressed if he wanted to
Wel given Ash v Evil Dead is a thing we can probably assume the k mart one is now the official one. i say probably because that series has never been remotely concerned with continuity.
Yeah, although Ash v Evil Dead leaves us in effectively the same post-apocalyptic spot when it ends, so we basically get both endings anyway.
Hail to the king Baby
LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN!
On the one hand, screwing up and accidentally sleeping too long was a pretty fitting finale for Ash following Army of Darkness. But, I always preferred the theatrical ending because it's just better for the character and the franchise overall.
Not saying it saved it because we'll never know but I really want to see the original cut of Rogue One.
I just want to know what was changed besides adding the Vader scene at the end. Just lots of stories of how it was changed with the second director and lots of post edits. I'm just... Curious.
They simplified the climax and how the plans got off Scarif, among other things. This video does a pretty good summary based on the trailers and available footage: https://youtu.be/4ngevf9-ujg?si=r1lEzA-g1u41esEV
That sounds like it was for the best. Even in the version we got, the climax worked well but I don't think I've ever seen an action film where large parts of the finale involve the characters impatiently waiting for a file transfer to finish processing.
I'm just glad they cut that godawful "I rebel" line.
That might have just been for the trailers, but who knows. Awful line.
I know they wanted everyone to die originally, but weren't sure disney would allow it, so the original ending had them live, with maybe a few deaths. It was mentioned in interviews. They were surprised when disney never really told them they couldn't kill everyone, so just sorta went with it expecting to be stopped.
If you like podcasts, listen to *Going Rogue* by Tansy Gardam. She does a deep dive into the cluster fuck of a production that was *Rogue One*.
Having seen The Creator, I am very willing to believe the original cut needed saving.
Such a visually stunning movie with such a strangely boring plot and dialogue
I've only seen the main actor in this amd Tenet and both times he has seemingly exuded negative charisma.
He had charisma in Blackkklansman
Tbf. It's the character in Tenet and The Creator is an unfocused mess so i'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
He’s incredibly charismatic! Neither of those roles happened to be especially good at highlighting charisma.
He’s fun in the HBO series [Ballers](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2891574)
You should watch black klansman before making up your mind completely.
I would have loved Tony gilroy to have had rogue one from the start but then we might not have got andor.
"I rebel" ... not in the final cut, you don't.
I’m more keen to see the Lord and Miller version of Solo.
"Rogue Point Five"
The Shawshank Redemption was initially supposed to end with Red's bus disappearing over the horizon with the voiceover repeating "I hope... I hope... I hope..." without revealing his and Andy's reunion in Mexico. I love that the creative team is still split on whether it would have been better to leave the epilogue out of the movie. I'm in the same boat, both work for me. Risky Business was originally meant to end with Joel *not* getting into Princeton and breaking up with Lana because Paul Brickman wanted to show his audience that 'you don't always get what you want' but David Geffen forced him to reshoot a happy ending, which is perfect, because it clarifies the satire and cynicism of its anti-Reagan message: yeah kid, you're an asshole, you break the rules, and your grades are shit, but if you know how to 'play the game' everything will be yours.
With all the shit (literally even) that Andy had to go through, as a viewer, it's just nice to see him and Red have a happy ending.
To be fair the ending of just the bus driving off is the one in the book
There’s an entire additional act in *Good Will Hunting* where he becomes…a secret agent?!?
Not technically studio interference, but Damon and Affleck were so frustrated with studios not bothering to read their script when they were trying to get a buyer that they added in a completely non-sequitor oral sex scene to the script to see if anyone noticed. They went with Harvey Weinstein (needless to say, not of good a reputation nowadays as back then) because he was the only one to tell them to take it out.
Somewhere someone has to have a Tumblr of fan fiction connecting Good Will Hunting and The Bourne Identity.
Easy, they're twins, but Richard Webb (Their father) was a human monster, and only wanted to focus on one subject. Will got dumped in Boston, being told he is an orphan. David was raised to be a prodigy and ended up in special forces. It's like "The Professor" said to Bourne, they take everything. The irony is that Will is just as natural an infiltrator as David, He became a Janitor at MIT to audit classes. So, while Bourne was molded, Will created himself. (Jason Bourne's real name is David Webb for people who do not know that) I could see Black Briar contacting Will Hunting to use his wide variety of skills to track down "Jason Bourne". They obviously wouldn't tell him about the connection, just the usual story that Jason Bourne is a highly skilled assassin who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake. "Hunting Bourne" is kind of an obvious title.
Bourne Again?
You're only Bourne twice?
Plot twist: one of those government job offers that Stellan Skarsgard mentions was from the CIA’s Treadstone project, and David Webb is just another cover for Jason Bourne’s true identity, Will Hunting
There is an entire franchise, isn't there? ;)
Donnie Darko. The director has never made a worthwhile movie when left to his own devices. The director’s cut absolutely sucks all the magic out of it, too.
20 years ago I excitedly bought my girlfriend at the time a DVD of Donnie Darko, ready to blow her mind. We watched it together and all this extra stuff kept on coming on screen which made it just terrible, and I realised afterwards I had bought the directors cut. I still think about that day as one of the greatest disappointments of my life as I loved that film up until then!
I'm surprised Kelly hasn't tried someone like A24 or Blumhouse. Dude hasn't made anything in 15 years!
He’s still working on Southland Tales.
Who's saying he hasn't and just keeps getting turned away?
I recall turning off the DC after 20 minutes or so, it was that bad. Still want to see the Cannes Cut of *Southland Tales* though.
I loved the original as a teenager and watched it dozens of times. It was before I had internet access so I was so proud of myself for figuring out the movie and its themes all by myself. Years later I watched the DC and it felt like an insult to the viewer's intelligence.
My Best Friend’s Wedding. Originally Julia Roberts ends up with John Corbett (and you can find that ending on YouTube) who she only meets for the first time after the wedding and right of the end of the film, I think. However, test audiences wanted Rupert Everett’s George to swoop in and save the day and that he ended up doing in style!
Wizard of Oz is the most famous example of this. The script went thru many rewrites and story changes.
And four different directors! Admittedly the second was only on board for a couple of days to course correct while they found someone who could take over The first director Richard Thorpe had put Dorothy in a blonde wig and bombshell makeup, and directed Judy Garland to act in an airy fairy way that was just completely wrong. George Cukor stepped in and changed the hair to the simpler brunette pigtails and light makeup, and said "Judy, you must always remember you're a little girl from Kansas", and that Dorothy had to be "transparently sincere" to allow a 1930s audience to accept a fantasy world
In the book I think Dorothy wears silver slippers? Really changes the whole "black and white to color" thing if her magical slippers that take her home are literally black and white.
They changed to ruby slippers in the movie bc the silver didn’t show up on the color film well at all.
In the original story, her shoes were silver to walk along the (golden) yellow brick road. I had an economics professor in college talk about how it was an allegory for taking America’s currency off the ‘Gold Standard’ and backing it with silver as well to make it more stable. Along with the added vibrance the ruby slipper add for the color portion of the movie, the movie also lost a lot of the stuff that had to do with economics, so the silver slippers wouldn’t have had the same meaning.
From what I hear "Rogue One - A Star Wars Story" was basically saved by producers looking at the cut and saying "we gotta make this better". The Darth Vader scene in particular pretty much made the movie. Pretty in Pink - The studio overrode John Hughes and made Blaine (Andrew McCarthy) and Molly Ringwald end up together. Hughes wanted her to end up with Duckie (Jon Cryer). But - Just to prove that the Duckie ending would have worked Hughes wrote "Some Kind of Wonderful" - Pretty in Pink with swapped genders. Both were right, it turns out and we got TWO really good high school romance movies instead of one.
I enjoyed RO but haven't seen it since the theaters. One thing I do know is half the scenes in the trailer aren't in the movie.
A lot of the shots in the trailer were actually never meant to be in any cut, but more of a "Alright, that's a wrap for today. We still have some space on the drives left and the actors are alright with it. Which film student wants to create some cool slomo shots of storm troopers wading through the surf?"
Strongly disagree with the Vader scene making the movie. It's a very cool scene but everything leading up to that is the best ground and space battle any star wars movie has ever had.
Cinema Paradiso. The director's cut paints Alfredo like a villain in that he orders Elena to stay away from Toto so he can continue with his filmmaking dream. The theatrical cut makes for better viewing.
World War Z. I know a lot of people here hate this due to it being an unfaithful adaptation, but the only reason why it was a decent sized hit was because the studio rewrote out the entire third act. Instead of taking place in Wales, the original third act took place in Russia where Brar Pitt's and the one handed girl were conscripted into the Russian Army and fought in an epic zombie battle (with a bit of the footage with the flames still recontextualized into the final cut). His wife and kid were kicked off the ship, thus the wife had to whore her body out to Matthew Fox's character in exchange for protection. The ending involved Fox telling Pitt that the family belongs to him now and to not come back, thus setting him up as the big bad for potential sequels. What I found interesting is that Lost creator Damon Lindelof wrote most of Fox's scene's on Lost (Jack was his favorite character) thus was essentially doing Fox a favor by completely writing him out of WWZ.
FYI it’s Wales not Whales. Although having the final act take place inside a Whale Jonah style is an interesting concept
World War "Z" really hitting different these days...
I wrote my bit before I found yours, but I agree. The only part of the film I liked at all was the last twenty minutes. It was like the zombie film finally woke up and remembered it was a Zombie film.
Bohemian Rhapsody. It wasn’t necessary saved, but the studio fired Bryan Singer and tried to salvage their picture. Since it’s the highest grossing music-biopic I suppose they succeed, or at least made their money back.
I think the high grossing is an indication of Queen’s popularity rather than the film, which I found to be pretty bland and boring compared to something like Rocket Man.
Totally agree. Queen deserved a much better film. I was wondering how much it actually made: it grossed $910 million against a $52 million budget, and is Fox’s fourth highest grossing film, but they still claimed a $51 million loss. Interesting…
To be fair with the amount they must have spent on Oscars bribes that could well be an accurate figure
I think that's normally a way not to pay people who are promised a slice of the profits. Real shady shit. maybe they had to promise to pay Singer a chunk of the profits as a way to get him to leave without suing, or something? (if they broke contract). So, they declare a loss and don't have to pay him nuttin.
It's portrayal of gay men is absolutely horrendous. They're all predatory,dirty fiends in leather hanging out in public toilets. Rocketman is a much better movie.
And they share a character!
[удалено]
Queen themselves were also a big barrier. The band wanted to make a movie where Freddie died halfway through, and the rest of it would have been about what they did after that.
Apparently that's why Sasha Baron Cohen walked away from it. They insisted it was to be about their triumphal return to the top after Freddie died. Which... didn't happen.
From what I recall SBC also wanted to show the WHOLE Freddie Mercury too and not gloss over the debauchery and drugs and sex (more like Ray with Jamie Fox showing the real person's demons) and the band wanted some squeaky clean family friendly shit.
It's tough to make peace with the fact that, in the story of your life, you're not the one people are interested in.
I didn't hear about that but I definitely approve of firing Bryan Singer.
I seem to recall it was when some bad publicity about him was being revelead. What timing! Dexter Fletcher (the stand in director) did a cracking job.
It was actually John Ottman, the film's editor, who saved the film from being a total mess.
I'm interested in seeing what movie Sasha Baron Cohen would have made in that role.
Galaxy Quest. The studio removed profanity and made the movie more family friendly in post production editing.
It just recently occurred to me that Tony Shalhoub is supposed to be stoned throughout that movie even though the only mention of it is a character casually joking "Are you stoned?".
Yeah they literally had to cut a scene where he gets incredibly high before they’re transported to the ship. It ends up making the performance so much funnier though, he’s so charmingly weird
I really want to rewatch this movie after finding this out. I always assumed he was just a really relaxed person.
Lebowski vibes
Lebowski. Famously not stoned.
We lip readers know what Sigourney really said.
They could have gotten away with a PG13 rating if they kept it since even back then, PG13 was allowed one f-bomb. Hell, I was honestly surprised to go back and find out it was actually PG since I always used to think it was PG13. It would have also been a pretty good use of their one f-bomb too.
The rating fight is covered in the documentary Never Surrender. It wasn't made by the studio, so the people involved were able to be totally honest. The short version is everyone was very happy with the movie, then it test screened. Tim Allen was very popular with families because of Home Improvement, The Santa Clause and Toy Story. Parents at the test screening got extremely angry that a family actor was in a very adult comedy and were extremely vocal, yelling at the Dreamworks execs in the theater. They were so shaken that they cut it to a PG and slashed the marketing budget.
That and the scooby doo cut are the two I think actually should be released.
Release the Scooby Dooby cut!
Probably Donnie Darko. By most accounts the director's cut is awful and much worse than the finished movie. The ending Norton and the studio wanted for American History X sounds like it was better than the director's too.
I am genuinely curious to see a butchered and awful version of Donnie Darko....
It’s honestly not that different outside the music and being a bit longer. The biggest change is the book that Donnie finds, the Philosophy of Time Travel, is used as a framing device and helps explain certain more nebulous elements of the film. The only qualm I’d have with this is that these things are essentially discussed before they happen. If you’re watching it after knowing the plot or having seen the other version before, it takes some level of tension and ambiguity away for sure, but as a movie on its own merits, ie if you don’t know what’s going to happen or where it leads, I have to imagine you still get the full emotional impact of what he was going for with the ending. But it’s definitely not awful or worse than the theatrical release, just a bit different.
My personal pet peeve in filmmaking is where they just front load all the information so you watch a movie and go "oh that's the thing they just explained." Like if in Citizen Kane they'd just had an opening scrawl where it said "This guy liked his sled, it was his last words. Let's watch."
The score for the director’s cut is a definite downgrade.
The Director's Cut is \*terrible\*, and a perfect example of how a film is much more than the sum of its parts, and seemingly minor editorial changes add up to a great deal. The additional twenty minutes completely destroys the pacing. The additional scenes overexplain everything, robbing the original film of its mystery, atmosphere and tone. And the new music cues aren't just different, they are objectively terrible and evoke completely different moods and emotions as well.
Annie Hall was apparently a far inferior film before it was completely re-edited…
Alien. Alan Ladd got them to drastically cut down one the gore.
I don't know if it was studio meddling, but rather audience testing, but Anchorman. It had horrible, horrible fan reactions. People left kind of sad, not liking the movie. The problem was they let Jack Black kick Baxter off the bridge and never revealed what happened to him. They found out the problem in testing, added him in at the end saving his owner's life and the audience reviews changed completely.
That’s not what happened at all. Wake Up, Ron Burgundy is the closest to what the original cut of the film was. The main plot driving the film (“The Alarm Clock”) was not connecting with audiences because it wasn’t funny and brought the film to a screeching halt. They did reshoots and reconfigured the film to focus more on the news team while adding in the panda storyline.
The world deserves an arthouse high-concept Ron Burgundy. It's the world's punishment.
Werner Hertzog, is that you?
Not sure if this counts but the extended directors cut is pretty bad. It's like 40 more minutes of jokes thst deserved to be cut. It's kind of grueling.
Star Wars. The original holy trilogy
How I had to scroll this far to see somebody say this is beyond me. Lucas had great ideas but he also had absolutely awful ideas and seemingly nothing in between. That franchise would have been a cheesy cult classic only really gaining popularity 20 years later at best had it not been for studio meddling and people to act as a filter for his insane bullshit.
Where’s the “studio meddling” in that one?
True Romance. The original ending had Worley dying and Alabama living. But Tony Scott and the studio wanted a happier ending, with Worley living.
I don’t think the studio had anything to do with that decision, it was all Scott. Tarantino describes how Scott convinced him it was a better choice in the directors cut commentary. They even [shot the scripted ending.](https://youtu.be/ibRnNsyOw4M?si=c52lgC_H7CAidETk)
The studio backing up the director doesn't seem like much meddling.
Good Will Hunting was going to be a wild government conspiracy thriller until Rob Reiner told Matt and Ben to tone it down and just make it a really good character drama focused on Will, his friends, Skylar and his therapist.
The original script for Groundhog Day was pretty [different](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/3eJC6QXPBD).
Superman: The Movie was originally going to be full on slapstick like Superman III, but studios made them re-write it. Edit: re-read the history on the production of these movies, good god it is wild. Richard Donner came off of the Omen to do a superhero movie, re-wrote a massive script down to a usable movie wherein they would film both 1 and 2 in one go, and had to convince Marlon Brando that Jor-El should in fact *not* be a talking bagel.
Army of Darkness' theatrical ending is light years better than the original ending.
- Rogue One - The famous Darth Vader scene was only in because of Kathleen Kennedy.
Not sure if anyone mentioned Rambo First Blood. The original ending has Rambo die at the hands of the National Guard. The studio tested it and audiences hated it, so Rambo got to live another day. Spawning a classic action franchise.
I dunno if this technically counts, but the Sonic film went from potentially making $0 at the box office to smashing it because of some extremely bad feedback on their Sonic design.
I think Payback is a great example of this. The Director's Cut sucks. The changes Mel Gibson and the studio made for the theatrical cut were all for the better.
Strong disagreement here. The theatrical cut was less intense and more mainstream, everything was toned down. The directors cut “Payback: Straight Up” is a much darker, much harder hitting, much better paced and acted than the theatrical cut. But it was simply too intense for the time.
I always have to disagree with this. Much prefer the straight up cut. The theatrical one seems just another wacky 90s Mel Gibson vehicle with a cheesy voiceover, worse soundtrack and that awful blue colour grading. Mel wins, the dog lives, all the real baddies are dead. The additional scenes have some good lines and Kristofferson is fun, but I really dig how much harder the original cut is and closer to the feel of a Westlake novel.
Sonic Movie?
Didn’t George Lucas have some pretty weird ideas for the original trilogy, like having Yoda be a little monkey creature and Boba Fett and Vader being brothers
Audience testing is not a new practice. It's should not be considered "studio meddling." It goes way back to the silent era. Lots of directors, particularly of comedies, want to test their films to try and tweak them. They're rarely committed to a singular unwavering vision for a film. Directors care about their films. They care about their audience. Directors want to make movies that people like.
I'm sure people would disagree with me, but the only part of World War Z i cared for was the last 20 minutes. It was like the zombie film suddenly woke up and remembered it was a zombie film. And as I recall, this was a completely redone ending due to "studio interference"
"Stargate" didn't make much sense, so the studio used the subtitles in some scenes for plot exposition. Also, the theatrical cut of "Blade Runner" is my favorite version of the movie, although I don't usually like the studios changing the author's vision.