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15 Famous Movies That Almost Had Completely Different Endings

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So close to another ending.

Nazarii Verbitskiy

TV Shows & Movies - September 18th 2026, 22:00 GMT+2

Clue — 15. Clue (1985)
Three separate endings existed for Clue, and 1985 theaters actually assigned different versions to different cities. Writer and director Jonathan Lynn built the murder mystery around Tim Curry's Wadsworth explaining the crime three separate ways. Home video releases finally stitched all three endings together, one after another, as the "and this is what really happened" gag. The joke only fully lands once you can watch it on VHS.

Cropped Clyde Shelton Law Abiding Citizen 2009 — 14. Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Gerard Butler's Clyde Shelton was originally written to survive the events of Law Abiding Citizen, walking away instead of dying in the explosion. Kurt Wimmer's script went through revisions that softened Clyde from a pure vigilante into something closer to sympathetic. F. Gary Gray reportedly pushed for the bleaker finish that made the 2009 cut. The version audiences got kills him off entirely.

Cropped the butterfly effect 2004 — 13. The Butterfly Effect (2004)
Ashton Kutcher's Evan Treborn was supposed to strangle himself in the womb in the original ending of The Butterfly Effect. That footage was shot for the 2004 film and later restored on the director's cut DVD. New Line Cinema balked at how dark it played for test audiences and swapped it for a gentler split. Evan instead just avoids ever meeting Kayleigh at all.

I Am Legend — 12. I Am Legend (2007)
Will Smith's Robert Neville dies in the theatrical cut of I Am Legend, blowing himself up alongside the infected. Richard Matheson's 1954 novel actually ends with Neville accepting he's the monster in the new world's story, not a martyr. An alternate ending closer to that idea was filmed, letting Neville communicate peacefully with the infected leader instead. Warner Bros. shelved it after test screenings favored the explosion.

Man on Fire — 11. Man on Fire (2004)
Denzel Washington's John Creasy survives in an early draft of Man on Fire, trading Pita's kidnapper back alive instead of dying from his wounds. Tony Scott shot the 2004 film with a bleaker finish in mind from the start, closer to A.J. Quinnell's 1980 novel. Creasy bleeds out in the back of a car after the exchange is done. Scott kept that ending, and it's the one that stuck. | © 20th Century Fox

Bird Box — 10. Bird Box (2018)
Sandra Bullock's Malorie was originally written to end alone, without the two kids she spends the whole film protecting. Josh Malerman's novel actually kills off the boy before the final chapter. Netflix's 2018 adaptation softened that outcome so both children reach the sanctuary alive. Susanne Bier, who directed the film, has said test audiences couldn't stomach losing a child that late. | © Netflix

A Nightmare on Elm Street — 9. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Wes Craven wanted Nancy to lose. His original cut of A Nightmare on Elm Street had Freddy Krueger win outright, with no triumphant final scare undoing his death. New Line Cinema pushed back, worried a franchise couldn't launch on a downer. What audiences got in 1984 is the compromise: Freddy seemingly destroyed, then that car with black-and-red glass grabbing Nancy anyway. | © New Line Cinema

Sally Field The Amazing Spider Man 2 — 8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
Peter Parker was supposed to walk away this time. Sony Pictures had drafted a cut of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 where Gwen Stacy survives the clock tower fall entirely. Emma Stone's character dies in the released 2014 version instead, lifted straight from the 1973 comic storyline "The Night Gwen Stacy Died." The studio kept the death because it was the one plot beat fans actually wanted preserved. | © Sony Pictures

Die Hard with a Vengeance — 7. Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
Three men on a subway car, a riddle, and a bomb. That's how Die Hard with a Vengeance nearly opened before Disney's Hollywood Pictures decided the script needed a full rewrite for Bruce Willis. Jonathan Hensleigh's original screenplay wasn't even a Die Hard movie until John McClane got grafted on later. Simon Gruber's plot against the Federal Reserve survived the rewrite almost untouched. | © 20th Century Fox

First Blood — 6. First Blood (1982)
John Rambo dies at the end of David Morrell's 1972 novel, shot by his own mentor Colonel Trautman. Sylvester Stallone reportedly refused to film that ending once cameras started rolling on First Blood. Test screenings in 1982 also pushed against killing off a character audiences had spent ninety minutes sympathizing with. Rambo surrenders instead, and Orion Pictures got the sequel-friendly franchise starter it needed. | © Orion Pictures

Fatal Attraction — 5. Fatal Attraction (1987)
A test audience in Southern California decided how Fatal Attraction ends. Glenn Close's Alex was originally supposed to take her own life, staging the scene to frame Michael Douglas's character for murder. Paramount reshot the ending after screenings scored poorly, giving Anne Archer's Beth the knife instead. Close has said publicly she still thinks the original version fit the character better. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped The Terminator — 4. The Terminator (1984)
James Cameron's first draft of The Terminator ended somewhere far softer than the one released in 1984. Sarah Connor was going to leave things open-ended, without the shot of her driving into the storm as a storm gathers on the horizon. Instead the film closes on her recording messages for an unborn John Connor, gas station attendant warning her about the weather ahead. Orion Pictures kept Cameron's grim tone intact, and it set the mold for every sequel that followed. | © Orion Pictures

Titanic — 3. Titanic (1997)
Nobody drowns twice in the same movie by accident, but Titanic almost gave Jack a very different exit. James Cameron considered a version where Rose simply lets him go without the courtroom-set present-day frame at all. The 1997 cut keeps old Rose on the Keldysh, dropping the Heart of the Ocean into the Atlantic. Paramount and 20th Century Fox split the financing, and the ending audiences got became the highest-grossing sequence in film history at the time. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped the truman show — 2. The Truman Show (1998)
Peter Weir shot an alternate ending for The Truman Show that never made it past the cutting room. Jim Carrey's Truman Burbank was going to walk through the studio door into a Los Angeles street, camera rolling as strangers recognized him. Weir cut the scene because he wanted the film to end on ambiguity rather than spectacle. What audiences got in 1998 is Truman bowing to the sky before stepping through, nothing shown of what comes next. | © Paramount Pictures

The Shawshank Redemption — 1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Frank Darabont wrote an ending for The Shawshank Redemption that stopped at Red boarding his bus, never showing Zihuatanejo at all. Castle Rock Entertainment pushed for the beach reunion, and Darabont added it days before the 1994 shoot wrapped. Producer Niki Marvin has said the studio believed audiences needed to see Andy and Red together. Roger Deakins shot the final scene on a beach in the Virgin Islands, miles from the Ohio prison sets. | © Columbia Pictures

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Some of cinema's most iconic finales were nearly something else entirely, scrapped in reshoots, rewrites, or test screenings. Here are 15 famous movies that almost had completely different endings.

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Some of cinema's most iconic finales were nearly something else entirely, scrapped in reshoots, rewrites, or test screenings. Here are 15 famous movies that almost had completely different endings.