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(#1) Beetlejuice
- Tim Burton
While the ending was never filmed, the original conception of Beetlejuice had a much darker ending. Despite the fact the film touched on ghosts and the afterlife, Beetlejuice was far more campy cult classic than horror film. However, that may not have been the case if the writers had their way.
Originally, Winona Ryder's Lydia did not make it out of the movie alive. In the original ending, Lydia was set ablaze intentionally, so she could live with her newfound ghost friends.
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(#2) First Blood
- Ted Kotcheff
Imagine if First Blood had stuck with its original ending, which was taken directly from the source material of the book. If it had, there would be no Rambo: First Blood Part II, Rambo III, or Rambo. Why?
Well, in the book of the same name, written by David Morrell, John Rambo defeats the bad guy and then takes his own life.
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(#3) Pretty Woman
- Garry Marshall
Imagine everyone's favorite film "professional," Vivian (Julia Roberts), in the film that launched America's Sweetheart's career, with a serious substance dependency. This would have made for a much different feature than the love story that played out instead.
The original screenplay was titled $3,000 and featured Edward (Richard Gere) following Vivian around to make sure that she didn't use.
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(#4) Little Shop of Horrors
- Frank Oz
Sometimes, even when producers spend a staggering amount of money on a scene, it still needs to be cut. This is exactly what happened for the ending of the comedy musical's original 23-minute finale. The $5 million third act featured Audrey Jr. chomping down on her owner and wreaking plant havoc on the world.
That conclusion was replaced with the happy ending of Seymour exterminating the plant and living happily ever after.
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(#5) Clerks
- Kevin Smith
Poor Dante. He wasn't even supposed to be at work that day. Thankfully, Kevin Smith deleted the original ending, which had Dante being slain.
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(#6) American Beauty
- Sam Mendes
Lester Burnham states he has passed via voice-over at the beginning of American Beauty, but we don't know the secretly-gay, tough-guy neighbor is the one who takes him out until the end of the movie. However, in the original script, which is much longer, Lester's daughter, Jane ,and her boyfriend Ricky are tried and convicted of the crime.
Their conviction is based on the evidence brought by Colonel Fitts in a frame job, after he found the videotape of Ricky and Jane talking about taking down Lester and took it to the authorities.
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(#7) Fatal Attraction
- Adrian Lyne
The original ending of Fatal Attraction involved unstable mistress Alex (Glenn Close) taking her own life to frame Dan (Michael Douglas) for the incident. However, she also gives Dan's wife, Beth, evidence that ultimately exonerates him from the crime. Test audiences didn't love this idea.
So instead, viewers got to enjoy Dan's scorned wife, Beth, putting her husband's mistress in the ground.
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(#8) Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
- George Lucas
George Lucas left several scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy on the cutting room floor. An interesting deleted scene of note came was from Return of the Jedi when Yoda would not allow Obi-Wan to tell Luke who his real father was.
Yoda was interested in training Luke to be a Jedi and he thought daddy issues would slow Luke down.
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(#9) Suspicion
- Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock didn't like that test audiences changed the ending of his classic mystery Suspicion. In the original ending, Johnnie, played by Cary Grant, was in fact the slayer of his wife. But who wants to see Grant as a bad guy to this degree?
Certainly not movie fans who convinced the production company, RKO Radio Pictures, to convince Hitchcock to turn Grant into a good guy.
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(#10) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Stanley Kubrick
Kubrick's classic ends with the iconic image of the mushroom cloud of an atomic event. But that wasn't Kubrick's original climax for the film. Instead, imagine the director opting to go all Charlie Chaplin slap-stick, forgo the destruction of the world, and end the black comedy with a pie in the face.
The conclusion was nixed after President Kennedy's passing, largely due to this line from the scene: "Our gallant young President has been struck down in his prime." The footage from the deleted scene is presumed lost.
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(#11) The Amazing Spider-Man 2
- Marc Webb
Who wants to be confused during a superhero movie? Spidey filmmakers got out of a whole lot of explaining when they deleted an odd scene in which Peter Parker visited his father's grave. The weirdness came when Peter found out that his dear old dad was actually alive and had been keeping an eye on him.
When it comes to plot lines, sometimes, less really is more.
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(#12) Mac and Me
- Stewart Raffill
Mac and Me follows a young extraterrestrial separated from its family who befriends an wheelchair-bound Earth boy, Eric. The film is laden with McDonald's references, making it feel more like a feature-length commercial with occasional plot more than anything else.
The film could have been so for a much different reason if this ending made the final cut. Producer Peter Kuplowsky found rare footage of an alternative ending of Mac and Me on a Japanese VHS.
In the US version, Eric is caught in the crossfires of an exchange of fire, which happens offscreen. Mac uses his alien powers to bring the child back to life and is granted Earth citizenship for his heroic act. In the Japanese version, however, audiences see all the elements of the grisly situation.
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(#13) True Romance
- Tony Scott
Imagine a world in which Alabama and Clarence don't get to live happily ever after. That was what screenwriter Quentin Tarantino originally had in mind for the couple. In an alternate ending, (the most common type of deleted scene), Clarence is felled in an arms conflict.
However, director Tony Scott fought against Tarantino's tragic ending, claiming that he had fallen in love with the characters.
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(#14) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
- Peter Jackson
This deleted scene did not make the theatrical release, but did - thankfully - appear on the extended release version. Sometimes, a little clarity goes a long way, especially when considering an epic trilogy with thousands of pages of source material.
This scene is important because it more thoroughly explains Faramir's intentions.
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(#15) Boiler Room
- Ben Younger
Seth calls on the FBI and rats out his crooked brokerage firm in exchange for immunity in the third act of Boiler Room. The good guy who got involved with a bad organization is also able to help out a client named Harry, who he conned. In a different version of the drama, the same client seeks out revenge.
Seth's life is spared only because he was leaving the office as Harry was blazing in.
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(#16) Sunset Boulevard
- Billy Wilder
Imagine test audiences laughing at what would turn out to be one of the most iconic films ever made. That was reportedly the case when Billy Wilder first screened Sunset Blvd. The original version of the film began with protagonist writer Joe Gillis at the morgue chatting up other corpses, all discussing the details of their passings.
Wilder deleted the silly scene and the film became a classic.
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(#17) Thelma & Louise
- Ridley Scott
Did we really need to see Thelma and Louise's car go up in a great ball of fire at the end of the greatest female buddy movie ever? Thankfully, the filmmakers figured audiences would get the picture.
As such, we were spared actually having to see their termination.
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(#18) King Kong
- Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
Censorship saved audiences from a much different King Kong in 1933. It is speculated by fans one deleted scene had the monster ape taking out four sailors by forcing them into a ravine filled with giant, hungry spiders. Preview audiences were petrified, in a bad way.
As a result, the scene was cut and the footage was lost.
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(#19) Forrest Gump
- Robert Zemeckis
Isn't it better that we don't know what Forrest said at the rally in Washington when his mic got unplugged? Yes. Yes, it is. But if you really must know, according to Tom Hanks, Forrest said:
"Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that."
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(#20) Knocked Up
- Judd Apatow
The split is pretty even on whether this scene should have been included in the final cut of the 2007 comedy. On the one hand, it's funny. On the other hand, maybe it's not funny. It just depends on your perspective of Jonah's Brokeback Mountain rant.
However, if the goal of any great comedy is to provide a plethora of quotable lines for generations to come, then this scene probably should have stayed in the film.
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(#21) Old School
- Todd Phillips
Old School is almost a perfect comedy, where every single scene is pure gold. That includes this deleted scene in which Beanie (Vince Vaughn) gets the fraternity house to assist with his son's birthday party.
This scene would have definitely added to the already-funny buddy comedy.
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