Alternate endings

One thing to note in that lab scene that we just passed, it was sort of the second kind of mile marker for our original ending, which was this idea that he had lost touch with any sort of emotional connection with these creatures as human beings, sick human beings. And this idea that he's testing his cure and the thing dies in front of him. And what he's upset about is that the cure didn't work. Not that this living creature has died right in front of his eyes. And we always...

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And our Wall of the Dead. Our Wall of the Dead, which is really more significant, although still significant in our current ending, was more significant in our original ending. In the original, right. Did all of them die? Yes. This is the theme which Francis and I have called Who's the Monster? Which is really a theme that's very consistent with the source material, the original novella. And our movie, although I think in its current form

1:13:33 · jump to transcript →

works with that theme in its original form, which we'll see when we talk about the alternate ending, really landed on it. Right. And you can feel it in this one, which is very interesting. You know, we sort of thought... It's the ham hock theory. Yeah, we created a new ending that we felt, you know, we really could put on this. And then, you know, when you watch it, you just see that working on a movie over time with a specific ending in mind, it's just built into the DNA of it. And a lot of that, you sort of feel the idea that these creatures are more intelligent than Neville thinks. Yeah.

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This was an idea, you know, I'd originally written it that he would walk through the hallway and put this to the wall, and J.K. wanted to. He had made the choice to stand up on that box and pin it to the top. And as soon as I saw it, I just thought, oh, no, no, we should just, it was just such a nice cut to go from scissors to him, you know? And then this is an ending, a second ending that we shot, and you'll see the original ending.

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probably things haven't gone well financially. But here they are, and she's having this moment of reflection. And this aspect, where she finds the drawings, was the original ending of the movie. But we wanted to continue things just a little bit more than what we did before. And there was a lot of discussion about it. And one day, Pete walked into the cutting room and said. And said? I said, I just spoke to my wife, Olivia, and she had this

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Because we were kind of missing that at the end. We wanted a little more hope. Yeah, we had a very, very, I mean, it's a pretty grim, it's a pretty dark ending. And the ending, the original ending, as you'll see elsewhere on the disc, will show you that it's a very, very bleak ending. And it strongly implies that it's not, that Sam's next. And the audience, you know, there's always a percentage of the audience that really liked that because they like the idea that it doesn't have a happy ending.

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And part of the emulsion, the yellow layer of the emulsion, was ruined. And there was no way they could fix it. This precipitated later on in the process of editing, us going back and deciding to go back and shoot a different ending, not in Washington, but in another location.

2:05:04 · jump to transcript →

Make a long story short, we ultimately decided to stay with the original ending. And there is a cut coming up of Holly that in the film version is horribly distorted in color. There was no way with the technology of the time that we could restore the true color of the shot. And Jim finally decided to go with the distorted color.

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Yeah, no, it's great. Interesting to wonder, too, because the Stanley Cortez shot Magnificent Ambersons and the original ending was Agnes Moorhead rocking back and forth into shadow, you know, while Joseph Cotton talks to her. Interesting. Maybe we get a little echo of that here. Yeah, that could be. Now, there's some very grisly dialogue here where he was just describing the slit in her throat like she had an extra mouth. Lawton could have just gone with that, and most movies of its day would have, but instead he showed us that great shot under the water. Yeah.

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Alan K. Rode

and had well over 200 other movie and TV credits. The original ending of the killing specified Hayden to run across the tarmac with the suitcase of money and be eviscerated by an airplane propeller. This ending would have been a direct lift from the 1950 film Armored Car Robbery that ends with William Talman being disemboweled by an oncoming plane at Van Nuys Airport amid a litter of purloined greenbacks.

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little knee sacks and white shoes. This was probably between Robert Shaye, the head of New Line and the producer of this film. This was our most contentious moment. Robert wanted Freddy to be driving this. And I simply refused. But it is still an extension of the original ending where Heather simply gets off the porch and goes off into the fog and the mother waves goodbye. But I felt...

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Jim Piddock

At the end, coming up here after she's turned the tables on the son of Zhivkov, if I may anticipate, at the end of the movie when she exposes her ignorance to him, what will he offer in the way of a wry appreciation for this upside-down state of affairs? Now just a feeble punchline shot long after the fact in order to replace the original ending. What is it he says now? Well, I'll give him your regards. Words to that effect, something very banal.

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isn't it? It's that idea transposed to the prism setting of the previous script. Because the original ending was far better than Vincent Ward's where you've got the giant field they've created and she walks into the fire. Okay. Yeah, I prefer this to be honest. There's supposed to be a scene where it's very what you'd see in The Lost World where the raptors are going through

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You know that's on YouTube, the original ending's on YouTube. Well, good. I'm glad people have found stuff from the original cuts. I'm sure there's an hour of footage that's missing. Really? Wow. And I love the animation, but it was great to have that. It was great to have that umbrella hat and rain and the burp.

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because we'll talk about the deleted scenes when we come onto those, which is that we did have a very different ending, which was a much bleaker ending. And I know a lot of people think you change things because of the influence of Hollywood or America on movies generally, and hopeful endings, happy endings, all that kind of stuff. But actually, the truth of it was that I think we all felt when we watched the film with an audience with our bleak ending on it,

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This whole thing was in the script. The first shot was exactly the way it was in the book, which was, it took place on an open beach. Right. I said, "Ted, I just feel like... "I don't know how to shoot suspense on an open beach. I just don't know." We changed the ending of the book, and everybody had a contribution. Dino and Martha said, "The boy has to be in more jeopardy. "The son has to be in more jeopardy, that's what will make this work." Brett said, "It has to be more claustrophobic. "Interiors are scarier than exteriors. "We have to have hallways with doors where he could appear from anywhere." And then this great, great moment with the mirror which is pure Brett Ratner. It was not in the screenplay originally. It was Brett's idea that the reveal to this character should be the broken mirror. It was wonderful. This sequence is an excellent example of how a screenplay evolves from the producers, from the director, and from the writer. And what I wanted, which was not in the original ending of the book, was for Will Graham to be more heroic. And then we added... In the ending of the book, he's injured by Dolarhyde on the beach. The kid hooks Dolarhyde with a fishing rod. Graham Is injured on the beach and runs away and hides, leaving his family to deal with the bad guy. And I wanted Graham to be more heroic at the end here. So we each had a shopping list for this sequence and got what we wanted. I also wanted Graham to show cleverness here. He can't overwhelm Dolarhyde physically. But he can outthink him. That's what he's good at. And taking all this, because Ted even said to me, "Brett, I don't write action. I don't really do that." And so I said, "Okay." I sat down with my stunt coordinator, Conny Palmisano. We went through beat by beat of what could possibly happen physically. We called Ted and went through it, and he came up with this whole thing... Where he stabs his leg with a... He's got a second knife hidden. But the whole thing about him using what he saw in the book, which is much more heroic than anything else he could do physically. This was where we took quite a leap. And tried to use things that the book suggested but didn't actually dramatize. And it really worked. And Tyler Patrick Jones who's... Wonderful little boy. Who did an amazing job and went through hours and hours of being thrown to the ground and being yelled at, berated. And very smart and... He's the sweetest little boy. We should have put at the end, "No children were harmed during the making of this." It's not his first movie. - Yeah. He actually worked with Spielberg on Minority Report. He had a small part. He said he actually liked me more than he did Spielberg. So I was happy about that. Don't cry at me, you little faggot! He said my beard wasn't as big as Spielberg's. Nor your bank account. "I'm a freak." Say it! No. - Say it! Dad! - Say it, or I will cut it off! "I'm a dirty little beast." Ralph did a great job here, and he was nervous about this. "Is this gonna work, Brett?" That was his question. And I said, "Let's shoot it and find out." - We won't know until we finish. Sound Dogs did a great job on the sound design here. They did Family Man with me, and they work... I love how you drove this whole sequence. This just goes like a freight train, this sequence. It's a classic. It's like the end of Psycho or something. It's just a great, great suspense sequence. Every shot selection and the pauses. Josh? - Mom? Will? Where are you guys? I thought I heard some kind of... Will? Great set. It was great. It was modeled after a real house that we saw in the Keys. It had very narrow hallways. These types of doors. Rattan louvered doors. We needed the doors to be louvered, because Molly has to be able to reach through the door here in order to unlock it.

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Clementine looked like because I had a specific person that I was physically basing her on. Here she's looking at the bruise she got from falling on the ice. That was part of the initial ending we had. They were mentioning, talking about her ass.

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And I think I like that we did this a lot. And I'm thinking a lot of other movies we may have... They may have celebrated this a little more. And I kind of love that the audience is not into this song. And they are going way too far. Didn't Aubrey have an ear infection during this? Yeah, that's weird that you know that, Margie. But she did. She actually showed up very sick. It was very hard for her to physically hold that pose. And she was miserable between takes. And then just putting on that smile. Ooh, here we go. Real fireworks, by the way. We got to go out there and shoot and film, which was great. You know, there's also a great deleted scene I recommend looking at before the fireworks go wrong here of our masseuse Keanu and our bridesmaid Becky having a little moment in the crowd there. That's very funny, that didn't make it in the movie. And then, of course... And this whole, this entire ending was not the original ending. We actually... This was like an alt that, halfway through filming the scene, I was like, "Wait a minute. What if the fireworks go wrong?" And it's kind of crazy 'cause it feels like such the end of the movie to me, and it was something we just tried on the day, and so then we had to do all the fireworks in post. We didn't have any of it ready to go wrong. I didn't know you could do it this way. And then, of course, the reversal here, which I really wanted to see. Felt like I had never seen this joke in a movie before. I'm sure, immediately, now that I've said that, people will tell me it's been done a thousand times. But I really was excited about trying it here. And, guys, that's it. That's Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. We got some bloops. We got some fun bloops here at the end. And I really don't know where the time went on this. Um... Okay. Well he's dead, and so is Jon Snow. I think Margie ate up a lot of it, frankly. Um, and I'm just gonna Say it, Margie. Yeah. I take back the nice things I said at the... A moment ago. You kind of ruined my first DVD commentary. Oh, Interesting. - So, thanks for that. Um, but you know what? This is... By the time you are done making a movie and going through the editing process, you've probably seen the movie about 200 times. So when I watch this now, I'm so used to everything in the movie. It's... It can be... It just flies right by. It's hard to remember what to talk about. I hope there was one shred of something that was interesting to someone in this. And I want to thank my editors very quick. Jon and Lee, and Jon who did great work dealing with all the footage I gave them. I think they counted it, they said... We shot digitally on this movie, but they said we had shot the equivalent of 1.4 million feet of film on this movie. Which they said was more than Apocalypse Now. And I don't know how we did that for a 90-minute comedy. But thank you, guys, for going through that. I think you're forgetting to thank someone. What are we doing? Oh, yeah, well, our costume designer, Deb McGuire, who's great with all that. I mean, there's so many people to thank. I mean, really everyone on the crew was fantastic. Nan, my first AD, Lisa. I mean, we really had a really, really good strong crew. Someone in the... Someone who is here right now, talking right now. Well, Zac and Adam are on there right now and I... Maybe I didn't thank them immediately. But, obviously, our whole cast's... No, I mean, Margie. Oh, yeah. Well, first of all, again, I feel like you're faking an accent, randomly, Margie. And you don't need to. You've got enough going on with you. I'm Margie from Ohio. I can't swim and I need my eggs frozen. Zac Efron, call me. Margie, what is going on? You know what? I will thank you, Margie. By the way, got this little gem in here. Which I do want everyone to know, Zac Efron freestyled this rap. This was after we recorded, this was after we recorded them doing tracks for the songs at the end of the movie, at the wedding. Doing This Is How We Do It and You Are So Beautiful. And Zac was just in the booth and he was like, "Yeah, you know, I'd kind of like to try to freestyle." And we were like, "Let's hear it." And we just gave him a beat and this is what he did. And it's amazing. He did a little freestyling and I said, "Let's try it as Dave. "Let's freestyle in character." And then he started doing this. And we mixed it into a song and put it at the end of the movie. I can do that, too. - I done... Hey, ya'll, ['m Margie I'm real tall I like monkeys and I like the... And I like books It's not even hard to rhyme "tall," Margie. All, mall, fall. But it's... You went with "books"? My name is Margie and I am a mall Oh, my God. It's like, if I weren't in this situation, if I were watching from the outside, I'd be fascinated. I'd love what's happening here. But because I'm one of the people involved, it just, it's too much. My name is Margie and I play basketball I like it a lot because it's fun The worst, maybe the worst freestyle rapping I've ever heard. And you've had, you've given yourself three... I see you writing on paper. So it's not even freestyle, first of all. I know you're trying to come up with rhymes. And then they're not rhymes! But you know what? We came back from that... Anyway, Zac is very good at it and I was very happy he let us put this at the end of the movie ina... I like to say, it's, this is the Wild Wild West of our movie. This, the Wild Wild West song of our movie. Which I'm very happy to have. By the way, Snappers Bar & Grill in the special thanks. It was right across from our, where we stayed in the hotel. And they were a Packers bar that I found in Honolulu and they served cheese curds. And I was in. We had a lot of meetings there. Thanks, guys. All right, thanks, and, Margie, thank you. My pleasure, thank you.

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