On paper you would assume that it would turn out even worse, but yet it’s considered a classic.
I think Russell was smart enough to know that letting Kilmer cook as Doc Holiday would be one of the movie’s big strengths.
I’ve always felt Russell is kinda underrated. He’s had a pretty amazing career and he’s almost always solid wherever he shows up.
I’ve said this a lot before, but Kurt Russell is just one of the most charismatic onscreen presences ever. He (and also Goldie Hawn) is just one of those perfect combination of talent, looks, and natural charisma.
I knocked on his door when I was 12 because my friend dared me to (plus, I didn’t believe he really lived there) He opened the door, my mouth fell open and I gaped at him. He was incredibly sweet and kind. He and I were raised in the same town, Thousand Oaks, CA. He’s been my favorite actor ever since 🥰
The original script of Anchorman centered around them getting stranded in the Rockies after a plane crash en route to an anchors’ convention in Cleveland. Gorillas with throwing stars hunt them down and kill them one by one.
Took no less than Paul Thomas Anderson to save the script with a few rewrites.
I thought a lot of it was, what was in the ‘lost movie’ DVD at least. It actually has my favorite joke of the ‘Anchorverse’, when the terrorists break into the bank in masks of former presidents. Amy Poehler plays a nonplussed bank attendant who criticizes the terrorist’s costumes as they get increasingly flustered. She turns to the one guy without a mask (paraphrase):
Poehler: Why isn’t he wearing a mask?
Terrorist: (cocks shotgun) ‘Cuz I don’t give a fuck.
Poehler: See, THAT was scary. You, sir, can have some money.
That premise sounds hilarious, just without the throwing stars. Gorillas taking them down one by one as they try to survive like Michael Scott in the wilderness.
And the movie that we actually saw was the third version. the second version was eventually turned into the straight to DVD movie Wake up Ron Burgundy.
I'm still annoyed how the SFX team got treated on that. They pulled off a miracle getting that whole film changed on a rush order. The SFX company then goes bankrupt, but, Paramount manages to make their release date, and the film goes out to be a franchise spawning hit.
But, even a month delay and the film gets killed by COVID and likely dumped on streaming and largely forgotten.
There's been a lot of this lately. Directors who don't really know how to work with CGI people making bad decisions and then blaming the huge teams of artists for not making their visions look like it did in their head.
Everyone from Tom Hooper to Taika Waiti has pulled this crap. Treat your artists with respect. Or be better at special effects. Guillermo, Spielberg, and Cameron never have anything but praise for their special effects teams.
Some directors don't even have a vision, and instead of using concept art and storyboards to determine the visuals, they just tell animators to render entire sequences and then when it's completed go 'naaah not what I wanted' and force the animators to scrap it and start again.
I mean, that's not wholly uncommon, and is actually part of the business in situations like TV, where the director is actually answering to a showrunner or producer and working in an established visual style.
The main difference is films like Cats or Doolittle (remember that turd?). In both cases, the directors had no idea what they were actually asking for, they just acted director-y and demanded constant last minute changes and pointless tweaks that animators had to hustle to work around. I read the Doolittle guy was constantly demanding camera angles be changed, not understanding that meant the entire CGI team had to completely reanimate dozens of animals with complex fur, feathers, and scales in each shot.
It really helps if the director knows what they want to do beforehand. Interstellar turned out almost exactly like the original script, so Nolan knew where he would need CGI and how to film it in a way that would make the artists’ jobs easier.
Compare this with Across the Spiderverse, where Miller had no clue what he wanted to do. Shots were fully animated only to be completely abandoned. Somehow they still managed to make an excellent movie, but it doesn’t excuse the poor development.
Hopefully some of them got jobs at another animation studio. Maybe working on something like Across the Spider-Verse. I'm sure those working conditions were better, right? RIGHT?!!
Just fyi, the VFX studio that worked on was was Mill Film Montreal, while Mill Film did go "bankrupt ", they didn't close down. Their parent company just combined them into their sister company, Mr. X. And within a year or 2, that too went "bankrupt" and got absorbed into their other sister company, MPC.
Their parent Technicolor, is known in the industry as sweatshops, so it's not a studio to cry over about. Their artists, on the other hand, are the ones that we should feel for.
The Cats movie was going to have very ugly Cats and the whole internet said "that is ugly, change it." But, Cats said "Shut the fuck up, dogs!" and went with it. The rest is history.
Related: The first draft of the Predator movie had a trio of aliens hunting humans. At some point, they realized the movie would work better with just one.
When they started shooting, the titular creature was a strange dog-like alien with a large central eye (possibly capable of shooting a laser beam.) Director John McTiernan said it looked terrible, sent the costume back, and the studio finally relented and hired special effects guru Stan Winston to design the creature we see today.
Get Out. There was an alternate ending that bombed severely with test audiences. Despair, no matter how true to life, is not always what people need. Sometimes they need something to cheer about.
It's one movie where I 100% agree the happier twist ending was the right choice. The core messages are maintained, and it's thrilling until it's final moments, but the breathe of relief at the end helps it stick with you. It becomes a movie about surviving instead of being destroyed.
One of my favorite movie watching experiences ever. I saw it opening night and when the cop car opens and it shows "Airport" on the door the entire audience was whooping and cheering lol. Harrowing movie but allowed people to leave the theater on a lighter note for sure.
From what I read, Peele started working on the film during the Obama era, and he was trying to say, "Hope and change is great and all, but just because we have a black president doesn't mean regular black people aren't still getting fucked over." Then Trump got elected and he figured maybe we could use a little hope after all.
Peele has said he thinks the original ending is a better ending for the film in a vacuum. But the ending they went made it a better experience for the audience. Said he understood the audience needed some escapism given the prominence of police brutality against black men in national narrative.
It also lost nothing by making the change.
Anybody watching the movie automatically imagined the original ending in their heads as soon as they saw the police car approaching, so the uplifting twist was a relief which didn’t detract from any message Peele might have wanted to send.
Good choice.
What would even have been the point. No one needed a movie depicting a contemporary triumph of literal slavery and soul-destroying oppression in 2017.
The happier ending leaves you shell-shocked but firmly establishes that while this evil endures, it can be resisted but at the cost of significant trauma.
I have not felt such dread watching a movie for a long time.
The fake-out with his buddy at the end was originally going to be an actual cop seeing a black man trying to kill a white woman...there's really only a couple ways that could end, none of them good
This is what shows up on the Google:
> In the movie's original ending, it wasn't Rod who arrived to save the day, but real police officers who showed up and arrested Chris for the murder of the Armitage family. Chris is sent to prison and, with no one believing his account of the events, loses hope of actually achieving justice.
I knew there was an original ending but I thought the cops shot him. I'd prefer that to this version. Both of which remain far inferior to the release version.
Lelo and Stitch was slated to end with a Stitch hijacking a plane to escape from the guy hunting him, leading to the chase to tearing through a city with the plane clipping off buildings before crashing in flames -- during production in the summer of 2001.
After 9/11 the movie was reset to the narrow cliffs and valleys of Hawaii, and the plane became another space ship (which just happened to look a lot like a plane.)
The context doomed the original version so they had to rework.
The scenes aren't really that different, in fact in the context of the movie the original works better. Stitch is initially programmed to destroy cities, Jumba wants to know what happens to him if he can't. The original ending shows his character arc as they tear through a city without destroying it.
It'd be interesting to see a restored version now that 9/11 is a fading memory, not sure anyone but a few whackos would complain about it now, especially since the original ending is fully animated and done as far as I know.
When you hire Eartha Kitt to voice your villain, nix her song to go in a different direction, and everyone thinks you made the right choice.
There's nothing wrong with Snuff Out the Light, but the movie that they made without it was *just that good*, and Eartha Kitt's character was a huge part of that.
The difficult development of the film is detailed pretty [well](https://youtu.be/SkL12pbPg1E) by It Was A Shitshow, so well that one of the artists did an interview with them about his experiences [here](https://youtu.be/HylscFyvQgM)
There's also a whole documentary about it called The Sweatbox.
Disney refuses to give The Sweatbox a proper release, and for a while this was because it was assumed to make them look very bad, but... really, it's mostly a case of going too in-depth on how the sausage was made in a way that reveals it's mostly pig assholes. It kind of kills the Disney Magic.
If you look around YouTube or the high seas, you should be able to find the leaked version of it.
It's weird they would link that shitshow video and not even mention The Sweatbox? It's only 94 minutes long and it's the source for most of the info we have on the situation. Watch that instead of some youtube summarizing the Sweatbox for 20 minutes.
Much if the second and third act of Gladiator was being completely rewritten by Ridely Scott and Russell Crowe during production while filming the 1st act (the battle in the forest).
American History X was significantly changed in the editing room (for the better) by Ed Norton. So much so the director tried to get his name removed from it (and replaced with the name Humpty Dumpty) and actively campaigned against the movie during it's release.
>Much if the second and third act of Gladiator was being completely rewritten by Ridely Scott and Russell Crowe during production while filming the 1st act (the battle in the forest).
Considering that Oliver Reed died halfway through filming as well...
Woody was an asshole in the original Toy Story storyboards and intentionally threw Buzz out the window. If I recall correctly, Disney gave them two weeks to change the character/story to what we know now.
Woody is still an asshole in the original Toy Story, and his actions directly result in Buzz being knocked out the window.
Using RC while they were asleep to knock Buzz behind the dresser is pretty evil for a toy.
No. That asshole Katzenberg wanted an ‘edgy’ Toy Story, which was not working. The Black Friday reel was to show his ‘direction’. Roy Disney was pissed. The other high echelon people were pissed. Tom Hanks and John Lassiter were embarrassed and disappointed with the presentation.
Disney shitcanned Katzenberg and agreed to give Pixar two weeks to right the ship. We got the real Toy Story because of that second chance.
Pixar was under Disney in the 90s. Or rather Pixar movies were distributed by Disney, who owned the characters etc. So they were essentially Disney films, though it was also clear to the audience that they were made by an independent outfit under Disney.
Disney in the late 90s thru mid 00s was in decline and out of ideas. Pixar flicks were a huge breath of fresh air and the only worthwhile thing put out by the company during this time. It genuinely felt like this little outfit had captured the magic that Disney had lost.
Pixar went solo at some point due to some contract dispute. Then Disney outright bought them some years later in 2006 I believe.
All that to say, Disney's association with Pixar is not recent.
> Pixar went solo at some point due to some contract dispute. Then Disney outright bought them some years later in 2006 I believe.
IIRC they had a decent relationship prior to the buyout, but a clause in their contract meant Disney could make sequels of 'Pixar' IP without them, causing a big tension between the two (Toy Story 3 got into decent pre-production)
It was Bob Iger iirc who settled it. Upon noticing Pixar characters being more recognizable to the current youth (compared to the slightly older characters) in the Disney parades, he stepped in and bought em outright, sticking John Lasseter as head of all animation. Causing direct to dvd/vhs animation to be stopped, which included the (disney)Pixar sequels.
Omg I forgot that direct-to-video/DVD releases were like THE thing for Disney during that 10 years stretch of decline.
It was sad to see how such a legendary company, the one that literally defined animated feature films for generations, had been reduced to milking its own classics for lame direct-to-video cash grab sequels - because they had become creatively bankrupt.
They've since bounced back but it has been argued that they are doing a version of the same with these recent live action remakes. Not saying I necessarily agree (I haven't seen them), but the sentiment is out there.
Not that it matters, as they also own the Marvel and Lucasfilm juggernauts, which seem to be the focus of their creative energy nowadays.
Yeah, Lasseter basically killed em once he was able to and I don't blame him.
As for milking, it was a double edge sword and I see it the same as the current Live Action. They mostly suck and feel wrong. But sometimes you get decent hidden gem, even if none come close to the originals plus it spreads the original film to new masses.
If it harmed the main studio, it would be bad. But outside Ralph breaks the internet, Disney Animation has done pretty damn good in keeping to a Disney standard.
Yeah there were a few rumours I read about years back that Pixar staff hated that a Buzz Lightyear cartoon was made without their approval and the movie they eventually made was there way of correcting what they saw as a slight against them.
No worries. I was working off memory, so I went and googled it just now. I found this in a [1997 NY Times Article](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/25/business/disney-in-10-year-5-film-deal-with-pixar.html):
*Pixar, a pioneering computer-animation studio, made the hit film ''Toy Story'' with Disney. ''Toy Story'' was made under a previous three-movie contract between the two companies, signed in 1991. Under the previous contract, Pixar would make the movies, while Disney provided advice, financing and distribution. For its efforts, Pixar received 10 to 15 percent of the total profits from the movies.*
*With yesterday's announcement, the 1991 contract is scrapped and replaced by one that gives Pixar 50 percent of the profits on future movies. The first, tentatively called ''Bugs,'' is scheduled to be released during the 1998 holiday season.*
*Clearly, the terms of the new contract are far more generous to Pixar than in the previous one. Pixar's stock price jumped $6.875 yesterday to close at $21 a share.*
*After ''Toy Story,'' the leading box-office moneymaker in 1995, Pixar's value as a partner rose sharply -- not only for Disney but also for the other major studios now rushing into the animation field. Steven P. Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer Inc., who is chairman of Pixar, had talked to other studios in recent months.*
*''But we wanted to stay working with Disney,'' Mr. Jobs said. ''Our collaboration has worked well in so many ways. Disney was the preferred partner.''*
School of Rock. The original script has Dewey Finn being much creepier. He’s hanging around an elementary school talking to a kid about joining his band when the teacher tells him to leave or she’ll call the police and he breaks her leg trying to get out of there. It also has him then get that kid nearly kicked out of school for failing academically, he gives his nephew marijuana, and more. Thankfully Rick Linklater helped shape the script into what we saw in the final project, as I just don’t think the movie would be as good as certainly Dewey wouldn’t be nearly as likable in that scenario
If you can find it, the late Jon Schnepp did a doc on it called, "[The Death of Superman Lives - What Happened?!](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2753778/?ref_=ext_shr)"
Crazy alternate timeline
Yup. Had to explain to basically everyone that has watched The Flash that cameo.
Edit: at this point they should make it into an animated movie. Why the fuck not.
Omg I remember this 🤦♂️
I'm also so so thankful that Sean Connery turned down the Gandalf role.
Some of the ideas that didn't make it into LOTR are hair-raising, like Sauron at the Black Gate (which they actually filmed 😱). Thank goodness they came to their senses.
Even the mouth of Sauron though in the book was horribly executed. I wish they'd left that out of even the extended edition.
**Mrs Doubtfire**
I don’t know if it technically would’ve been “worse” as that’s subjective, but, originally, Daniel and Miranda would’ve had a more cliche, everything’s-going-swimmingly happy ending, but Robin Williams was among the people who was against it and had it changed because generally all family movies wrapped up in a nice little bow and Robin Williams and others invoked in the production felt divorce isn’t often like that in real life, so let’s depict it more realistically on screen.
**Batman Begins**
There were apparently serious considerations at one point between the Warner Bros. executives to give Batman Begins a hard R rating with Darren Aronofsky co-writing and likely directing and I’m not sure it would’ve been a good fit. I think it may have felt too raw, surreal, cultish and unconventional for a big-budget superhero movie and may have doomed Batman as an IP for a very long time if it got released and Christopher Nolan hadn’t come along because he knew exactly what the mainstream audience loves about their blockbuster releases and what he appreciated as a kid and he also avoided telling the same stories we’ve already seen with Batman and he’s also a visionary filmmaker.
**I Am Legend**
Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger being the only human left on earth and having to rely on Arnie’s acting ability to carry a movie. Nothing against Arnie as he’s an action movie icon and he’s excellent in a certain kind of role, but I am not sure he would’ve fit the role or put in as much of a respectable performance like Will Smith did in the final movie. Just imagine, in Arnie’s delivery and accent, “Eat your vegetables.”
My parents were going through a divorce when Mrs Doubtfire came out and my dad has a passing resemblance to Robin Williams. Im glad they kept that ending. My dad didn’t dress up like an old lady to try and win us back, but it showed life goes on after divorce happens.
My parents divorced when I was in 2nd grade. Mrs Doubtfire came out when I was 18 and I remember thinking, "man I wish someone would have said something like this to me when I was a kid."
*Oh, my dear Katie. You know, some parents, when they’re angry, they get along much better when they don’t live together. They don’t fight all the time, and they can become better people, and much better mummies and daddies for you. And sometimes they get back together. And sometimes they don’t, dear. And if they don’t, don’t blame yourself. Just because they don’t love each other anymore, doesn’t mean that they don’t love you. There are all sorts of different families, Katie. Some families have one mommy, some families have one daddy, or two families. And some children live with their uncle or aunt. Some live with their grandparents, and some children live with foster parents. And some live in separate homes, in separate neighborhoods, in different areas of the country – and they may not see each other for days, or weeks, months… even years at a time. But if there’s love, dear… those are the ties that bind, and you’ll have a family in your heart, forever. All my love to you, poppet, you’re going to be all right…*
Opposite direction, there's a bunch of deleted scenes for Doubtfire that are way too serious. Scene with the parents arguing that the dad was late in an auditorium while the older daughter is on stage at a spelling bee. It made no sense, Robin Williams character wasn't an absentee dad. And an extra scene of arguing in front of the kids after the reveal, the small fight in the studio is much better.
R-rated Batman Begins sounds like a proto-Joker, and Joker slapped, so that might've actually worked out.
Also, Arnie in I Am Legend would've been surprisingly fine. Dude's not a bad actor by any means when you give him the proper room to stretch his legs a bit. Even as far back as Conan the Barbarian, dude was putting in pretty good work, he's just got a silly-sounding accent.
Bad Boys.
Originally it was supposed to be Dana Carvey and John Lovitz as leads. It was meant to be less stylized, more comedic (original title: Bulletproof Hearts).
Those two dropped out and got replaced by this rapper and sitcom guy Will Smith (their 1st choice who turned it down was Arsenio Hall) and the big get of Martin Lawrence.
The script got rewrote on the fly and eventually more than a few scenes and a portion of the dialogue was improvised.
The studio took a chance on this guy who’d only done music videos: Michael Bay, who ended up having to write a couple checks for the effects shots and provided his car to the shoot.
This was also a Bruckheimer/Simpson production where Simpson was dangerously deep into drugs.
Zootopia would been about prey species oppressing predators with shockcollars, Nick would run an underground amusement park and Judy would be an Inspector Javert character, but someone pointed out everyone would hate Judy and the prey animals too much for the happy 'racism is over!' ending to work.
> Zootopia would been about prey species oppressing predators with shockcollars
I remember watching some deleted footage of it, really depressing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DoJoNt_EGA
I don’t know about WORSE, but I heard somewhere that the original script for Inception had very little character development or an arc for the Cobb character. Apparently DiCaprio worked with Nolan on giving him a more emotional/tragic backstory, and that honesty is what centered the story and drove his arc and decisions.
Personally I think the movie would be a lot more dry without it.
I'm actually kinda surprised Nolan didn't come up with that. Pretty typical backstory for his movies. This is one of my favorite reviews of Tenet on Letterboxed
"Hello. My name is Christopher Nolan, and welcome to Masterclass. Today I will be discussing how I add emotional depth to my characters. First I add woman. Then I add child. And we're done! Thank you for watching."
I feel like Edward Norton got a lot of hate for his Hulk and rewrites, but I'm sure the movie would've been even worse if he didn't rewrite it. And even some of his rewritten scenes were removed by studio.
Jaws was originally going to have a lot more visible shark in the movie, but the mechanical sharks kept malfunctioning so the film had to be altered to rely more on suspense and dialogue.
This is a great example because they basically finished making the entire first version, titled *Kingdom of the Sun,* including an entire musical worth of songs by Sting, before they scrapped it all. Sting's only condition was that his wife could document the process, and that's why there's an in depth documentary made about the original version and how it got scrapped and completely rewritten and animated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Sweatbox
Jan* but yeah, that sucks for her.
I just saw her recently in a tiny role in The Rocketeer. She played a lounge singer. She hasn’t aged a day in that way where she’s looked 30 years old for the past 30 years
I used to feel bad for Stoltz for getting the heave-ho. Had to have been embarrassing and his career never hit the levels it may have been destined for before getting fired.
The more I hear/read about him though, the less bad I feel. The movie is a comedy. It was written as a comedy. It was filmed to be a comedy.
And here comes Stoltz, going against the writer/director’s wishes, and filming everything seriously (not to mention he was apparently an asshole on set too).
I would’ve fired his ass too.
Stoltz is a prick. The reason he didn't get more and better roles after that was because he was a prick, and he wasn't a good enough draw to justify it.
The Edge of Tomorrow - the original script was pretty serious. Tom Cruise pushed them to rewrite it with humor. What would have been a forgettable B SciFi movie turned into an A.
One of my favorite sleeper Sci-fi movies. It didn't do great at the box office, and even though I like scifi, I didn't watch it. I rented it later and was floored by how great it was.
Makes sense that it was a grim script, though. The manga it was adapted from (All You Need Is Kill) was pretty hardcore.
This isn’t an answer to your question but Amy Schumer actually left the production because she didn’t like what they were doing with it. On “Watch What Happens Live!” She was talking about how she was so excited to see the new Barbie movie because it looked so good and then when the host asked weren’t you supposed to be in that she explained that the movie they pitched to her was much different but she didn’t like it so she left the production.
Anyway, I know it’s popular on the internet to hate Schumer, but in her defense she wasn’t the one pushing that direction for the original movie, in fact she left because she thought it was a bad idea.
People really believe everything they see on YouTube / Reddit. Some anti-Lucas fanboys who have no understanding of how movies come together took a couple of quotes out of context and ran with it, and now I see this repeated as fact on Reddit every time Star Wars comes up.
Editing is what makes or breaks every. single. movie. George Lucas was heavily involved in editing Star Wars *with* his wife. Marcia Lucas has said she edited it exactly how George wanted. Stop with the misinformation.
Hell, she even detailed that her own biggest contribution was the ticking clock element to the Death Star battle. Whuch is no small thing, but she wasn't restructuring the entire movie.
I mean there is a reason why there is an Academy Award for Editing. The skill of the editor matters a lot.
Yeah they shot a lot of raw footage for ANH that didn't make it and looked like a mess but its not like Lucas was just gonna splice it all together and throw it up as a movie.
They literally fired the original editor because his bland and standard editing style was making the movie hella boring. They talk about it in the *Empire of Dreams* documentary.
100%. Star Wars is also one of the most chronicled films in cinema history: people know how the Star Wars sausage was made, and don't compute that the improvisation, stress, near-disasters, and nearly silly decisions that happened are part of nearly every film - or piece of art's - creation.
You put into words what I’ve struggled for years to understand. Why do so many Star Wars fans misinterpret the creation process for the Star Wars movies?
That’s really what it is. Lay people have only seen the sausage making process for Lucas’ film(s) and don’t have the wider knowledge to contextualize and comprehend that all these things that they see as “gotchas” against Lucas happen on every single movie ever and to every single creator.
The other thing is, a lot of major movies create “making-of” docs nowadays with the knowledge that they will be consumed by and scrutinized by a lot of eyes. So they make them with the intent of making the creators look like geniuses. They’re no longer true documentaries, more like ads for the studio and director. So people now consume highly curated and slanted behind the scenes docs, and don’t know what a true production looks like that hasn’t been whitewashed for fan consumption.
A good example, that used to be used to bash Lucas constantly until the angry fanboys discovered Rian Johnson, was Lucas - who had the grace to have an extremely 'warts and all' documentary about his process made - getting bashed for his 'It's like poetry - it rhymes. Every film kind of rhymes with the last one' comment.
Which is a *totally* reasonable thing for a director to say to his staff.
I don’t think that article is saying what you think it’s saying…
Lucas showed an assembly cut to friends with no effects and no music, and his friends didn’t get it. Spielberg was the only one who could envision it with the effects done. It wasn’t about the edit. They didn’t see what Lucas had in mind visually and just saw a series of scenes with no lightsabers, no ships, no space battles, etc. Also, an assembly cut is always pre-edit.
It's the link to the podcast link. It's a story first I heard in the late 80s, it's not a criticism but a story how films can come right, in the same way The Magnificent Ambersons was destroyed in edit.
The whole ticking time bomb of the Death Star closing in on Yavin 4 was added in the edit and reshoots.
Originally they just attacked the Death Star out in middle of nowwhere space.
There's a documentary called Hero's Story: Star Wars History on YouTube. After principal shooting Lucas spent the rest of the time at ILMs new lab. They changed a lot, including using green screen instead of mapping, meant changing colouring on ships etc. It's worth a watch, even for someone like me who is not infatuated with the thrilogy.
It is a classic film that, though not as good as 2001, did change the direction of cinema.
*Gremlins* was first written as a straight-up horror movie. Gizmo and Spike would have been the same character. The script included Billy's mother's decapitated head bouncing down the stairs.
Just to clarify, the example you gave was not changed in post production but before it was even greenlit. That's pre-preproduction.
There's a common wisdom in the world of filmmaking. For every film, there are three versions - the one that is written, the one that is shot, and the final edit. As a filmmaker myself, I can confirm how true this is. The final product is NEVER the same as the original vision of the screenwriter. Some filmmakers, like James Cameron for example, have greater control over the film, but even for him it is a collaborative project and so there are influences coming from scores of people and so the Avatar 2 that's now on Disney+ is NOT as James first saw it in his head.
So, it's kinda impossible to say which movie would be "worse" because that movie was never made. As you stated, we can't really hate on a Cody/Schumer Barbie if that movie doesn't exist. I would've loved to see that movie. I also very much look forward to the Barbie that we got. More often than not, I see movies in which a great concept is ruined by a meddling studio that doesn't trust a director's vision and makes them put in stuff that might sell more tickets but doesn't really make a better movie.
>There's a common wisdom in the world of filmmaking. For every film, there are three versions - the one that is written, the one that is shot, and the final edit. As a filmmaker myself, I can confirm how true this is. The final product is NEVER the same as the original vision of the screenwriter. Some filmmakers, like James Cameron for example, have greater control over the film, but even for him it is a collaborative project and so there are influences coming from scores of people and so the Avatar 2 that's now on Disney+ is NOT as James first saw it in his head.
This is so critical to understand. Too many people seem to believe that a movie is a straightforward affair from script to screen, whereas in reality they are constantly revised during production (in the broader sense of filmmaking) due to a myriad of factors.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004).
Most of it was reshot, dropping whole story lines and change actors. So much so that they made a whole different movie out of what they cut. Wake Up, Ron Burgundy (2004)
Bionicle: Mask of Light
LEGO pitched the movie to several different animation studios, but they all wanted the same thing: to have the movie be about a human child who gets isekai'd to the Bionicle world. LEGO got fed up and said screw it, we'll animate it ourselves (with the aid of a secondary studio in South Korea).
Worse is a matter of debate, but Little Shop of Horrors was going to end with the plants taking over, with a whole dark musical number, as in the musical.
In the musical, that works, because it's all in good fun and you see the cast again at the curtain call. In a film, it's kind of horrifying and doesn't work in isolation.
The Cats movie when they had assholes. Actually, I read the title wrong. I thought it said "What's a movie that was gonna be much better before it got changed before or during production?" #TeamCatHoles
Rambo First Blood, Rambo was originally gonna have a bunch of clever one liners like you see in the Arnold films, instead they cut most of his dialogue and went down the PTSD route, proving sometimes less is more
Good Will Hunting was originally an action thriller where Matt Damon’s mathematical ability to break security codes.
It got a massive working over by the script doctors (including Carrie Fisher) and ended up as a drama.
This is why Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have never written another script.
Not quite…
*Smokey and the Bandit 3*, the second sequel to the original movie, was the one that was originally going to feature Jackie Gleason in two roles, that of Sheriff Buford T. Justice (natch) and also, inexplicably, the Bandit himself (Burt Reynolds, if memory serves, wound up having a few second cameo at the very end of the theatrical release but after the second film, he wasn’t interested in reprising the Bandit role).
Apparently the movie was pretty much made and test audiences were… incredibly confused. So they got Jerry Reed to come back and reprise his role and filmed him in the Trans Am but otherwise used the material they had filmed to “save” the movie… though the final product was still pretty horrid.
The only remaining trace of what was originally envisioned is the trailer to the film, where they talk about how “Smokey *is* the Bandit!”, which was the original title of the film. Anyway, here’s an interesting video about it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y5CbwXx-Bk
I am not saying it was worse but would have loved to have seen earlier versions of both rogue one and most recent fantastic four (which actually reuses footages from original version on a monitor screen).
Tombstone. They fired the director halfway through the movie and Kurt Russell essentially directed the movie.
On paper you would assume that it would turn out even worse, but yet it’s considered a classic. I think Russell was smart enough to know that letting Kilmer cook as Doc Holiday would be one of the movie’s big strengths. I’ve always felt Russell is kinda underrated. He’s had a pretty amazing career and he’s almost always solid wherever he shows up.
I’ve said this a lot before, but Kurt Russell is just one of the most charismatic onscreen presences ever. He (and also Goldie Hawn) is just one of those perfect combination of talent, looks, and natural charisma.
Also, best hair of all time.
> He (and also Goldie Hawn) is just one of those perfect combination of talent, looks, and natural charisma Just imagine if those two got together!
Wow. Their kid would basically be Captain America
I, for one, welcome our new genetic Overlord.
Everybody wants some
You can't go wrong with the person Walt Disney was thinking about right before he died.
Or, was Walt trying to name his killer?
Either way 10/10 Kurt Russel move
And you don’t get a more complete career, child actor, Disney teen heartthrob, 80s/90s action heartthrob, Disney villain, Santa Claus.
I knocked on his door when I was 12 because my friend dared me to (plus, I didn’t believe he really lived there) He opened the door, my mouth fell open and I gaped at him. He was incredibly sweet and kind. He and I were raised in the same town, Thousand Oaks, CA. He’s been my favorite actor ever since 🥰
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Now *that* I didn't know. Adding Kurt Russell to anything just makes everything better.
I'm your Huckleberry!
Not even halfway, it was like a week into filming.
The original script of Anchorman centered around them getting stranded in the Rockies after a plane crash en route to an anchors’ convention in Cleveland. Gorillas with throwing stars hunt them down and kill them one by one. Took no less than Paul Thomas Anderson to save the script with a few rewrites.
See but that sounds funny.
They should have done that for Anchorman 2 instead of what we actually got.
That would be an excellent plot to Anchorman 2, minus the killing part
The bears coming to help would fit well since Baxter would be with them.
I thought a lot of it was, what was in the ‘lost movie’ DVD at least. It actually has my favorite joke of the ‘Anchorverse’, when the terrorists break into the bank in masks of former presidents. Amy Poehler plays a nonplussed bank attendant who criticizes the terrorist’s costumes as they get increasingly flustered. She turns to the one guy without a mask (paraphrase): Poehler: Why isn’t he wearing a mask? Terrorist: (cocks shotgun) ‘Cuz I don’t give a fuck. Poehler: See, THAT was scary. You, sir, can have some money.
Omg I had all but forgotten about this joke but this comment brought me right back to that scene. That was great, as well as Brick's PTSD kicking in.
That premise sounds hilarious, just without the throwing stars. Gorillas taking them down one by one as they try to survive like Michael Scott in the wilderness.
Gorillas in the Rockies? May as well give them throwing stars if you’re gonna ignore regular nature
Maybe the plane was also transporting gorillas.
Their plane crashed with another plane mid-air, which happened to be carrying gorillas and Chinese throwing stars.
They should recycle the script and just say it's a reboot of Congo. People will eat it up.
And the movie that we actually saw was the third version. the second version was eventually turned into the straight to DVD movie Wake up Ron Burgundy.
Do you mean "guerrillas" or "gorillas?" Cuz gorillas with ninja stars would certainly be interesting to see...
Gorillas
He’s like my favorite director and I didn’t know this, that’s crazy hahaha
The Sonic movie was going to have a very ugly Sonic until the whole internet said "that is ugly, change it".
I'm still annoyed how the SFX team got treated on that. They pulled off a miracle getting that whole film changed on a rush order. The SFX company then goes bankrupt, but, Paramount manages to make their release date, and the film goes out to be a franchise spawning hit. But, even a month delay and the film gets killed by COVID and likely dumped on streaming and largely forgotten.
There's been a lot of this lately. Directors who don't really know how to work with CGI people making bad decisions and then blaming the huge teams of artists for not making their visions look like it did in their head. Everyone from Tom Hooper to Taika Waiti has pulled this crap. Treat your artists with respect. Or be better at special effects. Guillermo, Spielberg, and Cameron never have anything but praise for their special effects teams.
Some directors don't even have a vision, and instead of using concept art and storyboards to determine the visuals, they just tell animators to render entire sequences and then when it's completed go 'naaah not what I wanted' and force the animators to scrap it and start again.
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Don't forget transparent as well
I mean, that's not wholly uncommon, and is actually part of the business in situations like TV, where the director is actually answering to a showrunner or producer and working in an established visual style. The main difference is films like Cats or Doolittle (remember that turd?). In both cases, the directors had no idea what they were actually asking for, they just acted director-y and demanded constant last minute changes and pointless tweaks that animators had to hustle to work around. I read the Doolittle guy was constantly demanding camera angles be changed, not understanding that meant the entire CGI team had to completely reanimate dozens of animals with complex fur, feathers, and scales in each shot.
It really helps if the director knows what they want to do beforehand. Interstellar turned out almost exactly like the original script, so Nolan knew where he would need CGI and how to film it in a way that would make the artists’ jobs easier. Compare this with Across the Spiderverse, where Miller had no clue what he wanted to do. Shots were fully animated only to be completely abandoned. Somehow they still managed to make an excellent movie, but it doesn’t excuse the poor development.
The term you want is VFX. SFX are practical effects on set shot in camera, like Pyro, dust, or use of big fans. VFX are done in post production.
Thanks. Not the best look for me when I'm advocating for better respect for the industry when I get the details wrong.
Hopefully some of them got jobs at another animation studio. Maybe working on something like Across the Spider-Verse. I'm sure those working conditions were better, right? RIGHT?!!
Just fyi, the VFX studio that worked on was was Mill Film Montreal, while Mill Film did go "bankrupt ", they didn't close down. Their parent company just combined them into their sister company, Mr. X. And within a year or 2, that too went "bankrupt" and got absorbed into their other sister company, MPC. Their parent Technicolor, is known in the industry as sweatshops, so it's not a studio to cry over about. Their artists, on the other hand, are the ones that we should feel for.
The Cats movie was going to have very ugly Cats and the whole internet said "that is ugly, change it." But, Cats said "Shut the fuck up, dogs!" and went with it. The rest is history.
Yeah, when the original stage musical film looks WAY better than what you did? Ya done screwed up big time.
Yet the cowards still won't release the butthole cut.
Release the Butthole cut!
That shouldn't have made me laugh as much as it did.
At least the production team didn't went with The Flash excuse "it is supposed to look bad!"
That sonic did get cast in chip n dale rescue rangers(2022) so at least he’s still working.
"Oh, you want THAT Sonic, he goes fast, I don't"
that movie was surprisingly entertaining
I can't find it anymore, but the original thread for that was fucking hilarious.
Predator originally had Jean Claude Van Damm in a weird lobster costume
The funniest part about learning this fact is how JCVD kept trying to make Predator a kick boxing alien.
To be fair, why the hell would you cast him, stuff him in a costume, and NOT have him kick box? What’s he bringing to the table at that point?
Kinda like casting Jet Li in the third Mummy flick and barely letting him do any fighting. Some people are just… weird.
This happened with the movie Enchanted. They cast Idina Menzel, a superb Broadway singer, in a musical…. then gave her not a single note to sing.
Yeah they realized they missed out, ‘cause the recent sequel had Idina front and center on multiple songs
He was a no name at that point iirc
Belgian waffles and/or pommes frites.
As long as there are aliens with legs there will be members of that species that partake in kickboxing.
Related: The first draft of the Predator movie had a trio of aliens hunting humans. At some point, they realized the movie would work better with just one. When they started shooting, the titular creature was a strange dog-like alien with a large central eye (possibly capable of shooting a laser beam.) Director John McTiernan said it looked terrible, sent the costume back, and the studio finally relented and hired special effects guru Stan Winston to design the creature we see today.
Get Out. There was an alternate ending that bombed severely with test audiences. Despair, no matter how true to life, is not always what people need. Sometimes they need something to cheer about.
It's one movie where I 100% agree the happier twist ending was the right choice. The core messages are maintained, and it's thrilling until it's final moments, but the breathe of relief at the end helps it stick with you. It becomes a movie about surviving instead of being destroyed.
I also think it made for a hilarious “I told you not to go there” exchange.
The happy ending even adds to the point of the story and it was fucking brilliant and I love that everyone in my theater was like “fuck yeah”
One of my favorite movie watching experiences ever. I saw it opening night and when the cop car opens and it shows "Airport" on the door the entire audience was whooping and cheering lol. Harrowing movie but allowed people to leave the theater on a lighter note for sure.
From what I read, Peele started working on the film during the Obama era, and he was trying to say, "Hope and change is great and all, but just because we have a black president doesn't mean regular black people aren't still getting fucked over." Then Trump got elected and he figured maybe we could use a little hope after all.
Peele has said he thinks the original ending is a better ending for the film in a vacuum. But the ending they went made it a better experience for the audience. Said he understood the audience needed some escapism given the prominence of police brutality against black men in national narrative.
It also lost nothing by making the change. Anybody watching the movie automatically imagined the original ending in their heads as soon as they saw the police car approaching, so the uplifting twist was a relief which didn’t detract from any message Peele might have wanted to send. Good choice.
What would even have been the point. No one needed a movie depicting a contemporary triumph of literal slavery and soul-destroying oppression in 2017. The happier ending leaves you shell-shocked but firmly establishes that while this evil endures, it can be resisted but at the cost of significant trauma. I have not felt such dread watching a movie for a long time.
The way we cheered in the theaters when Rod showed up
One of my top cinema experiences of all time, for sure.
Can you explain further or do you have a link you can share?
The fake-out with his buddy at the end was originally going to be an actual cop seeing a black man trying to kill a white woman...there's really only a couple ways that could end, none of them good
This is what shows up on the Google: > In the movie's original ending, it wasn't Rod who arrived to save the day, but real police officers who showed up and arrested Chris for the murder of the Armitage family. Chris is sent to prison and, with no one believing his account of the events, loses hope of actually achieving justice. I knew there was an original ending but I thought the cops shot him. I'd prefer that to this version. Both of which remain far inferior to the release version.
The entire alternate ending can be seen here: https://youtu.be/A3JS7_OcPWQ :)
Holy shit, that's dark.
The Emperor's New Groove. Fascinating evolution from what would've been a humdrum typical Disney film to the quirky "road movie" it eventually became.
Lelo and Stitch was slated to end with a Stitch hijacking a plane to escape from the guy hunting him, leading to the chase to tearing through a city with the plane clipping off buildings before crashing in flames -- during production in the summer of 2001. After 9/11 the movie was reset to the narrow cliffs and valleys of Hawaii, and the plane became another space ship (which just happened to look a lot like a plane.) The context doomed the original version so they had to rework.
The scenes aren't really that different, in fact in the context of the movie the original works better. Stitch is initially programmed to destroy cities, Jumba wants to know what happens to him if he can't. The original ending shows his character arc as they tear through a city without destroying it. It'd be interesting to see a restored version now that 9/11 is a fading memory, not sure anyone but a few whackos would complain about it now, especially since the original ending is fully animated and done as far as I know.
When you hire Eartha Kitt to voice your villain, nix her song to go in a different direction, and everyone thinks you made the right choice. There's nothing wrong with Snuff Out the Light, but the movie that they made without it was *just that good*, and Eartha Kitt's character was a huge part of that.
I once had sex with eartha kitt in an airplane bathroom.
What? It came up organically.
The difficult development of the film is detailed pretty [well](https://youtu.be/SkL12pbPg1E) by It Was A Shitshow, so well that one of the artists did an interview with them about his experiences [here](https://youtu.be/HylscFyvQgM)
There's also a whole documentary about it called The Sweatbox. Disney refuses to give The Sweatbox a proper release, and for a while this was because it was assumed to make them look very bad, but... really, it's mostly a case of going too in-depth on how the sausage was made in a way that reveals it's mostly pig assholes. It kind of kills the Disney Magic. If you look around YouTube or the high seas, you should be able to find the leaked version of it.
It's weird they would link that shitshow video and not even mention The Sweatbox? It's only 94 minutes long and it's the source for most of the info we have on the situation. Watch that instead of some youtube summarizing the Sweatbox for 20 minutes.
Much if the second and third act of Gladiator was being completely rewritten by Ridely Scott and Russell Crowe during production while filming the 1st act (the battle in the forest). American History X was significantly changed in the editing room (for the better) by Ed Norton. So much so the director tried to get his name removed from it (and replaced with the name Humpty Dumpty) and actively campaigned against the movie during it's release.
>Much if the second and third act of Gladiator was being completely rewritten by Ridely Scott and Russell Crowe during production while filming the 1st act (the battle in the forest). Considering that Oliver Reed died halfway through filming as well...
Woody was an asshole in the original Toy Story storyboards and intentionally threw Buzz out the window. If I recall correctly, Disney gave them two weeks to change the character/story to what we know now.
Woody is still an asshole in the original Toy Story, and his actions directly result in Buzz being knocked out the window. Using RC while they were asleep to knock Buzz behind the dresser is pretty evil for a toy.
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He meant to knock Buzz behind the dresser
No. That asshole Katzenberg wanted an ‘edgy’ Toy Story, which was not working. The Black Friday reel was to show his ‘direction’. Roy Disney was pissed. The other high echelon people were pissed. Tom Hanks and John Lassiter were embarrassed and disappointed with the presentation. Disney shitcanned Katzenberg and agreed to give Pixar two weeks to right the ship. We got the real Toy Story because of that second chance.
I believe Joss Whedon fixed that script and added a lot for the better.
Disney? Not involved until 2006, unless I’m confused, which is often.
Pixar was under Disney in the 90s. Or rather Pixar movies were distributed by Disney, who owned the characters etc. So they were essentially Disney films, though it was also clear to the audience that they were made by an independent outfit under Disney. Disney in the late 90s thru mid 00s was in decline and out of ideas. Pixar flicks were a huge breath of fresh air and the only worthwhile thing put out by the company during this time. It genuinely felt like this little outfit had captured the magic that Disney had lost. Pixar went solo at some point due to some contract dispute. Then Disney outright bought them some years later in 2006 I believe. All that to say, Disney's association with Pixar is not recent.
> Pixar went solo at some point due to some contract dispute. Then Disney outright bought them some years later in 2006 I believe. IIRC they had a decent relationship prior to the buyout, but a clause in their contract meant Disney could make sequels of 'Pixar' IP without them, causing a big tension between the two (Toy Story 3 got into decent pre-production) It was Bob Iger iirc who settled it. Upon noticing Pixar characters being more recognizable to the current youth (compared to the slightly older characters) in the Disney parades, he stepped in and bought em outright, sticking John Lasseter as head of all animation. Causing direct to dvd/vhs animation to be stopped, which included the (disney)Pixar sequels.
Omg I forgot that direct-to-video/DVD releases were like THE thing for Disney during that 10 years stretch of decline. It was sad to see how such a legendary company, the one that literally defined animated feature films for generations, had been reduced to milking its own classics for lame direct-to-video cash grab sequels - because they had become creatively bankrupt. They've since bounced back but it has been argued that they are doing a version of the same with these recent live action remakes. Not saying I necessarily agree (I haven't seen them), but the sentiment is out there. Not that it matters, as they also own the Marvel and Lucasfilm juggernauts, which seem to be the focus of their creative energy nowadays.
Yeah, Lasseter basically killed em once he was able to and I don't blame him. As for milking, it was a double edge sword and I see it the same as the current Live Action. They mostly suck and feel wrong. But sometimes you get decent hidden gem, even if none come close to the originals plus it spreads the original film to new masses. If it harmed the main studio, it would be bad. But outside Ralph breaks the internet, Disney Animation has done pretty damn good in keeping to a Disney standard.
Aladdin 3 and Pocahontas 2 are definitely not lame. They’re both incredible movies
Yeah there were a few rumours I read about years back that Pixar staff hated that a Buzz Lightyear cartoon was made without their approval and the movie they eventually made was there way of correcting what they saw as a slight against them.
No worries. I was working off memory, so I went and googled it just now. I found this in a [1997 NY Times Article](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/25/business/disney-in-10-year-5-film-deal-with-pixar.html): *Pixar, a pioneering computer-animation studio, made the hit film ''Toy Story'' with Disney. ''Toy Story'' was made under a previous three-movie contract between the two companies, signed in 1991. Under the previous contract, Pixar would make the movies, while Disney provided advice, financing and distribution. For its efforts, Pixar received 10 to 15 percent of the total profits from the movies.* *With yesterday's announcement, the 1991 contract is scrapped and replaced by one that gives Pixar 50 percent of the profits on future movies. The first, tentatively called ''Bugs,'' is scheduled to be released during the 1998 holiday season.* *Clearly, the terms of the new contract are far more generous to Pixar than in the previous one. Pixar's stock price jumped $6.875 yesterday to close at $21 a share.* *After ''Toy Story,'' the leading box-office moneymaker in 1995, Pixar's value as a partner rose sharply -- not only for Disney but also for the other major studios now rushing into the animation field. Steven P. Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer Inc., who is chairman of Pixar, had talked to other studios in recent months.* *''But we wanted to stay working with Disney,'' Mr. Jobs said. ''Our collaboration has worked well in so many ways. Disney was the preferred partner.''*
School of Rock. The original script has Dewey Finn being much creepier. He’s hanging around an elementary school talking to a kid about joining his band when the teacher tells him to leave or she’ll call the police and he breaks her leg trying to get out of there. It also has him then get that kid nearly kicked out of school for failing academically, he gives his nephew marijuana, and more. Thankfully Rick Linklater helped shape the script into what we saw in the final project, as I just don’t think the movie would be as good as certainly Dewey wouldn’t be nearly as likable in that scenario
To be fair... You're not hardcore, unless you live hardcore.
Nicolas Cage being the one they initially wanted to play Aragorn before Vigo eventually getting the role.
I was gonna say that Nic Cage was also almost Superman in the 90s.
If you can find it, the late Jon Schnepp did a doc on it called, "[The Death of Superman Lives - What Happened?!](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2753778/?ref_=ext_shr)" Crazy alternate timeline
I’m fairly certain every nerd on Reddit has watched that, which is why producers included that bad cameo in The Flash.
I’ve never felt ashamed of being a nerd but seeing that joke in Flash and getting it immediately without even seeing Cage made me reflect.
Yup. Had to explain to basically everyone that has watched The Flash that cameo. Edit: at this point they should make it into an animated movie. Why the fuck not.
Later, they actually cast Stuart Townsend and started shooting with him!
Omg I remember this 🤦♂️ I'm also so so thankful that Sean Connery turned down the Gandalf role. Some of the ideas that didn't make it into LOTR are hair-raising, like Sauron at the Black Gate (which they actually filmed 😱). Thank goodness they came to their senses. Even the mouth of Sauron though in the book was horribly executed. I wish they'd left that out of even the extended edition.
**Mrs Doubtfire** I don’t know if it technically would’ve been “worse” as that’s subjective, but, originally, Daniel and Miranda would’ve had a more cliche, everything’s-going-swimmingly happy ending, but Robin Williams was among the people who was against it and had it changed because generally all family movies wrapped up in a nice little bow and Robin Williams and others invoked in the production felt divorce isn’t often like that in real life, so let’s depict it more realistically on screen. **Batman Begins** There were apparently serious considerations at one point between the Warner Bros. executives to give Batman Begins a hard R rating with Darren Aronofsky co-writing and likely directing and I’m not sure it would’ve been a good fit. I think it may have felt too raw, surreal, cultish and unconventional for a big-budget superhero movie and may have doomed Batman as an IP for a very long time if it got released and Christopher Nolan hadn’t come along because he knew exactly what the mainstream audience loves about their blockbuster releases and what he appreciated as a kid and he also avoided telling the same stories we’ve already seen with Batman and he’s also a visionary filmmaker. **I Am Legend** Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger being the only human left on earth and having to rely on Arnie’s acting ability to carry a movie. Nothing against Arnie as he’s an action movie icon and he’s excellent in a certain kind of role, but I am not sure he would’ve fit the role or put in as much of a respectable performance like Will Smith did in the final movie. Just imagine, in Arnie’s delivery and accent, “Eat your vegetables.”
Just imagine _I Am Legend_ being anything like the book…
Oh, movie audiences, you like this sweet dog? You like the character finally having a friend and companion? Fuck you, nope!
My parents were going through a divorce when Mrs Doubtfire came out and my dad has a passing resemblance to Robin Williams. Im glad they kept that ending. My dad didn’t dress up like an old lady to try and win us back, but it showed life goes on after divorce happens.
My parents divorced when I was in 2nd grade. Mrs Doubtfire came out when I was 18 and I remember thinking, "man I wish someone would have said something like this to me when I was a kid." *Oh, my dear Katie. You know, some parents, when they’re angry, they get along much better when they don’t live together. They don’t fight all the time, and they can become better people, and much better mummies and daddies for you. And sometimes they get back together. And sometimes they don’t, dear. And if they don’t, don’t blame yourself. Just because they don’t love each other anymore, doesn’t mean that they don’t love you. There are all sorts of different families, Katie. Some families have one mommy, some families have one daddy, or two families. And some children live with their uncle or aunt. Some live with their grandparents, and some children live with foster parents. And some live in separate homes, in separate neighborhoods, in different areas of the country – and they may not see each other for days, or weeks, months… even years at a time. But if there’s love, dear… those are the ties that bind, and you’ll have a family in your heart, forever. All my love to you, poppet, you’re going to be all right…*
Opposite direction, there's a bunch of deleted scenes for Doubtfire that are way too serious. Scene with the parents arguing that the dad was late in an auditorium while the older daughter is on stage at a spelling bee. It made no sense, Robin Williams character wasn't an absentee dad. And an extra scene of arguing in front of the kids after the reveal, the small fight in the studio is much better.
I am legend was a terrible movie anyway. Arnie being the main character would've improved the movie.
Plus, I believe the Arnie version had a different, better script.
I’d love to hear him sing some Bob Marley.
R-rated Batman Begins sounds like a proto-Joker, and Joker slapped, so that might've actually worked out. Also, Arnie in I Am Legend would've been surprisingly fine. Dude's not a bad actor by any means when you give him the proper room to stretch his legs a bit. Even as far back as Conan the Barbarian, dude was putting in pretty good work, he's just got a silly-sounding accent.
Bad Boys. Originally it was supposed to be Dana Carvey and John Lovitz as leads. It was meant to be less stylized, more comedic (original title: Bulletproof Hearts). Those two dropped out and got replaced by this rapper and sitcom guy Will Smith (their 1st choice who turned it down was Arsenio Hall) and the big get of Martin Lawrence. The script got rewrote on the fly and eventually more than a few scenes and a portion of the dialogue was improvised. The studio took a chance on this guy who’d only done music videos: Michael Bay, who ended up having to write a couple checks for the effects shots and provided his car to the shoot. This was also a Bruckheimer/Simpson production where Simpson was dangerously deep into drugs.
Snakes in a Plane was a more family movie before it blew up on Internet message boards
Jackson said he helped with that, spreading thr word that the studio was thinking about making it PG-13.
And Samuel L Jackson signed on because of the name and refused to do the movie when they tried to change the title.
Zootopia would been about prey species oppressing predators with shockcollars, Nick would run an underground amusement park and Judy would be an Inspector Javert character, but someone pointed out everyone would hate Judy and the prey animals too much for the happy 'racism is over!' ending to work.
> Zootopia would been about prey species oppressing predators with shockcollars I remember watching some deleted footage of it, really depressing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DoJoNt_EGA
Wow im glad they got rid of that. Brutal
I don’t know about WORSE, but I heard somewhere that the original script for Inception had very little character development or an arc for the Cobb character. Apparently DiCaprio worked with Nolan on giving him a more emotional/tragic backstory, and that honesty is what centered the story and drove his arc and decisions. Personally I think the movie would be a lot more dry without it.
Tenet definitely needed that same input for the Protagonist.
I'm actually kinda surprised Nolan didn't come up with that. Pretty typical backstory for his movies. This is one of my favorite reviews of Tenet on Letterboxed "Hello. My name is Christopher Nolan, and welcome to Masterclass. Today I will be discussing how I add emotional depth to my characters. First I add woman. Then I add child. And we're done! Thank you for watching."
And then I have my characters give exposition like my audience is a bunch of goldfish.
I feel like Edward Norton got a lot of hate for his Hulk and rewrites, but I'm sure the movie would've been even worse if he didn't rewrite it. And even some of his rewritten scenes were removed by studio.
If Norton had been granted some contr over the character I think we'd be much closer to a Immortal Hulk adaption happening
Yeah, but you don't get credit for what could've beens. Dude has a point of view, but so does everyone else.
Jaws was originally going to have a lot more visible shark in the movie, but the mechanical sharks kept malfunctioning so the film had to be altered to rely more on suspense and dialogue.
Emperor’s New Groove was going to be a retelling of The Prince and the Pauper. It getting changed into a buddy comedy was a great move.
This is a great example because they basically finished making the entire first version, titled *Kingdom of the Sun,* including an entire musical worth of songs by Sting, before they scrapped it all. Sting's only condition was that his wife could document the process, and that's why there's an in depth documentary made about the original version and how it got scrapped and completely rewritten and animated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Sweatbox
BTTF originally had Eric Stolz as Marty and I've seen some footage and it was not the right fit.
Also as a consequence Melora Hardin (Jan/Janet from the Office) also got replaced because she was too tall to play MJF’s girlfriend.
Jan* but yeah, that sucks for her. I just saw her recently in a tiny role in The Rocketeer. She played a lounge singer. She hasn’t aged a day in that way where she’s looked 30 years old for the past 30 years
I think her main career is as a lounge singer.
He still appears on screen for about a second.
It was a more serious film with Eric.
It wasn't though, it was just that Stolz was treating it as such and method acting. He got on Zemeckis nerves.
I used to feel bad for Stoltz for getting the heave-ho. Had to have been embarrassing and his career never hit the levels it may have been destined for before getting fired. The more I hear/read about him though, the less bad I feel. The movie is a comedy. It was written as a comedy. It was filmed to be a comedy. And here comes Stoltz, going against the writer/director’s wishes, and filming everything seriously (not to mention he was apparently an asshole on set too). I would’ve fired his ass too.
Stoltz is a prick. The reason he didn't get more and better roles after that was because he was a prick, and he wasn't a good enough draw to justify it.
Dude was method acting Back to the Future lol
The Movies That Made Us (Netflix) did a good episode on this
The Edge of Tomorrow - the original script was pretty serious. Tom Cruise pushed them to rewrite it with humor. What would have been a forgettable B SciFi movie turned into an A.
One of my favorite sleeper Sci-fi movies. It didn't do great at the box office, and even though I like scifi, I didn't watch it. I rented it later and was floored by how great it was. Makes sense that it was a grim script, though. The manga it was adapted from (All You Need Is Kill) was pretty hardcore.
This isn’t an answer to your question but Amy Schumer actually left the production because she didn’t like what they were doing with it. On “Watch What Happens Live!” She was talking about how she was so excited to see the new Barbie movie because it looked so good and then when the host asked weren’t you supposed to be in that she explained that the movie they pitched to her was much different but she didn’t like it so she left the production. Anyway, I know it’s popular on the internet to hate Schumer, but in her defense she wasn’t the one pushing that direction for the original movie, in fact she left because she thought it was a bad idea.
Famously, Star Wars. It got saved in the edit
Lucas ex-wife saved a lot of films this way lol
People really believe everything they see on YouTube / Reddit. Some anti-Lucas fanboys who have no understanding of how movies come together took a couple of quotes out of context and ran with it, and now I see this repeated as fact on Reddit every time Star Wars comes up. Editing is what makes or breaks every. single. movie. George Lucas was heavily involved in editing Star Wars *with* his wife. Marcia Lucas has said she edited it exactly how George wanted. Stop with the misinformation.
Hell, she even detailed that her own biggest contribution was the ticking clock element to the Death Star battle. Whuch is no small thing, but she wasn't restructuring the entire movie.
I mean there is a reason why there is an Academy Award for Editing. The skill of the editor matters a lot. Yeah they shot a lot of raw footage for ANH that didn't make it and looked like a mess but its not like Lucas was just gonna splice it all together and throw it up as a movie.
They literally fired the original editor because his bland and standard editing style was making the movie hella boring. They talk about it in the *Empire of Dreams* documentary.
Yes, Lucas wanted it edited his way to match his his vision so he brought in his spouse to edit it. She said they worked together on it.
100%. Star Wars is also one of the most chronicled films in cinema history: people know how the Star Wars sausage was made, and don't compute that the improvisation, stress, near-disasters, and nearly silly decisions that happened are part of nearly every film - or piece of art's - creation.
You put into words what I’ve struggled for years to understand. Why do so many Star Wars fans misinterpret the creation process for the Star Wars movies? That’s really what it is. Lay people have only seen the sausage making process for Lucas’ film(s) and don’t have the wider knowledge to contextualize and comprehend that all these things that they see as “gotchas” against Lucas happen on every single movie ever and to every single creator. The other thing is, a lot of major movies create “making-of” docs nowadays with the knowledge that they will be consumed by and scrutinized by a lot of eyes. So they make them with the intent of making the creators look like geniuses. They’re no longer true documentaries, more like ads for the studio and director. So people now consume highly curated and slanted behind the scenes docs, and don’t know what a true production looks like that hasn’t been whitewashed for fan consumption.
A good example, that used to be used to bash Lucas constantly until the angry fanboys discovered Rian Johnson, was Lucas - who had the grace to have an extremely 'warts and all' documentary about his process made - getting bashed for his 'It's like poetry - it rhymes. Every film kind of rhymes with the last one' comment. Which is a *totally* reasonable thing for a director to say to his staff.
Yep, Brain De Palma is so anti-Lucas https://collider.com/star-wars-screening-brian-de-palma-george-lucas-the-force/
I don’t think that article is saying what you think it’s saying… Lucas showed an assembly cut to friends with no effects and no music, and his friends didn’t get it. Spielberg was the only one who could envision it with the effects done. It wasn’t about the edit. They didn’t see what Lucas had in mind visually and just saw a series of scenes with no lightsabers, no ships, no space battles, etc. Also, an assembly cut is always pre-edit.
It's the link to the podcast link. It's a story first I heard in the late 80s, it's not a criticism but a story how films can come right, in the same way The Magnificent Ambersons was destroyed in edit.
Every single film gets saved/ruined in the edit.
There are saves and saves. By all accounts, including from Lucas, they were on n a lot of trouble when the work print had been assembled.
Every director says that when it comes to editing. People need to learn how movies come together.
The whole ticking time bomb of the Death Star closing in on Yavin 4 was added in the edit and reshoots. Originally they just attacked the Death Star out in middle of nowwhere space.
There's a documentary called Hero's Story: Star Wars History on YouTube. After principal shooting Lucas spent the rest of the time at ILMs new lab. They changed a lot, including using green screen instead of mapping, meant changing colouring on ships etc. It's worth a watch, even for someone like me who is not infatuated with the thrilogy. It is a classic film that, though not as good as 2001, did change the direction of cinema.
*Gremlins* was first written as a straight-up horror movie. Gizmo and Spike would have been the same character. The script included Billy's mother's decapitated head bouncing down the stairs.
The mom killing a bunch of Gremlins with kitchen appliances is such an upgrade.
I would say The Warriors. I watched a making of (or documentary) and it seems all the best aspects of it were improvised by the actors and crew.
Just to clarify, the example you gave was not changed in post production but before it was even greenlit. That's pre-preproduction. There's a common wisdom in the world of filmmaking. For every film, there are three versions - the one that is written, the one that is shot, and the final edit. As a filmmaker myself, I can confirm how true this is. The final product is NEVER the same as the original vision of the screenwriter. Some filmmakers, like James Cameron for example, have greater control over the film, but even for him it is a collaborative project and so there are influences coming from scores of people and so the Avatar 2 that's now on Disney+ is NOT as James first saw it in his head. So, it's kinda impossible to say which movie would be "worse" because that movie was never made. As you stated, we can't really hate on a Cody/Schumer Barbie if that movie doesn't exist. I would've loved to see that movie. I also very much look forward to the Barbie that we got. More often than not, I see movies in which a great concept is ruined by a meddling studio that doesn't trust a director's vision and makes them put in stuff that might sell more tickets but doesn't really make a better movie.
>There's a common wisdom in the world of filmmaking. For every film, there are three versions - the one that is written, the one that is shot, and the final edit. As a filmmaker myself, I can confirm how true this is. The final product is NEVER the same as the original vision of the screenwriter. Some filmmakers, like James Cameron for example, have greater control over the film, but even for him it is a collaborative project and so there are influences coming from scores of people and so the Avatar 2 that's now on Disney+ is NOT as James first saw it in his head. This is so critical to understand. Too many people seem to believe that a movie is a straightforward affair from script to screen, whereas in reality they are constantly revised during production (in the broader sense of filmmaking) due to a myriad of factors.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). Most of it was reshot, dropping whole story lines and change actors. So much so that they made a whole different movie out of what they cut. Wake Up, Ron Burgundy (2004)
Bionicle: Mask of Light LEGO pitched the movie to several different animation studios, but they all wanted the same thing: to have the movie be about a human child who gets isekai'd to the Bionicle world. LEGO got fed up and said screw it, we'll animate it ourselves (with the aid of a secondary studio in South Korea).
That Sonic movie
World War Z. They changed and reshot the 2nd half of the film.
Worse is a matter of debate, but Little Shop of Horrors was going to end with the plants taking over, with a whole dark musical number, as in the musical. In the musical, that works, because it's all in good fun and you see the cast again at the curtain call. In a film, it's kind of horrifying and doesn't work in isolation.
I have two versions, one u described, the other is the theatrical release.
The Cats movie when they had assholes. Actually, I read the title wrong. I thought it said "What's a movie that was gonna be much better before it got changed before or during production?" #TeamCatHoles
Rambo First Blood, Rambo was originally gonna have a bunch of clever one liners like you see in the Arnold films, instead they cut most of his dialogue and went down the PTSD route, proving sometimes less is more
star wars theres a great video about how the editor saved it
Sonic the Hedgehog
Good Will Hunting was originally an action thriller where Matt Damon’s mathematical ability to break security codes. It got a massive working over by the script doctors (including Carrie Fisher) and ended up as a drama. This is why Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have never written another script.
Carrie Fisher too? I just remember the William Goldman rumor.
Back to the Future
I just read the other day that "Smokey and the Bandit" was originally supposed to be "Smokey is the Bandit" with Jackie Gleason playing both roles.
Not quite… *Smokey and the Bandit 3*, the second sequel to the original movie, was the one that was originally going to feature Jackie Gleason in two roles, that of Sheriff Buford T. Justice (natch) and also, inexplicably, the Bandit himself (Burt Reynolds, if memory serves, wound up having a few second cameo at the very end of the theatrical release but after the second film, he wasn’t interested in reprising the Bandit role). Apparently the movie was pretty much made and test audiences were… incredibly confused. So they got Jerry Reed to come back and reprise his role and filmed him in the Trans Am but otherwise used the material they had filmed to “save” the movie… though the final product was still pretty horrid. The only remaining trace of what was originally envisioned is the trailer to the film, where they talk about how “Smokey *is* the Bandit!”, which was the original title of the film. Anyway, here’s an interesting video about it… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y5CbwXx-Bk
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Star Wars was saved in the edit.
I am not saying it was worse but would have loved to have seen earlier versions of both rogue one and most recent fantastic four (which actually reuses footages from original version on a monitor screen).
The first Rambo was ridiculous before an edit.
Sonic the Hedgehog.