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15 Movies With Endings That Had To Be Changed And Completely Reshot

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Not the original ending.

Nazarii Verbitskiy

TV Shows & Movies - September 24th 2026, 17:00 GMT+2

Anchorman The Legend of Ron Burgundy — 15. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Ron Burgundy was originally going to save the day by foiling a terrorist plot at an observatory, not by wrestling a bear at the zoo. That climax got scrapped entirely during test screenings for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Adam McKay reportedly shot enough alternate material to fill a second cut of the movie, some of which surfaced years later online. What survived is the news team battling rival anchors and Ron getting mauled by a grizzly. | © DreamWorks Pictures

Dodge Ball A True Underdog Story 2004 cropped processed by imagy — 14. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Test audiences hated watching the underdogs lose, so the ending of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story got rebuilt around a win. The Average Joes originally dropped the championship and the film just stopped there, with no triumphant finish. Rawson Marsh Thurber's script was reshaped so Peter LaFleur bets the gym on the final dodge, and the crowd-pleasing version stuck. That reshoot is the reason the movie has a poster-ready finish at all. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped Little Shop of Horrors — 13. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Audrey II wins in the version nobody saw. The stage musical's ending, where the plant devours Seymour and Audrey and spreads across the world, made it into an early cut of Little Shop of Horrors before Warner Bros. panned it in test screenings. Frank Oz reshot the finale so the couple survives and only one rogue Audrey II sapling hints at trouble ahead. The darker cut still exists and occasionally turns up on home video releases. | © Warner Bros.

Misery 1990 — 12. Misery (1990)
Paul Sheldon walks with a limp and a cane by the end of Misery, and that detail exists because test audiences couldn't buy anything better. Rob Reiner's crew had shot James Caan recovering fully after Kathy Bates shatters his ankles with a sledgehammer. Viewers found it physically unconvincing given the injuries shown earlier in the film. The reshoot added the cane as a small concession to realism. | © Columbia Pictures

Superman II — 11. Superman II (1980)
Richard Donner was fired partway through production, and Richard Lester finished Superman II with enough new footage to reshape the whole third act. The kiss that wipes Lois Lane's memory of Superman's identity came out of that reshoot, not Donner's original plan. Gene Hackman reportedly declined to return for the reshoots, which is why some of his scenes rely on doubles or archive footage. Richard Donner's own cut, assembled decades later in 2006, ends very differently. | © Warner Bros.

Cropped 28 days later 2002 — 10. 28 Days Later (2002)
Cillian Murphy's Jim was supposed to die in that hospital sequence, bleeding out right after rescuing Selena and Hannah. 28 Days Later shot an alternate finale where the survivors wait for a plane instead, signaled by smoke on a hillside. Danny Boyle included both versions on the DVD, letting people pick their own ending. The rescue cut is the one that made theaters. | © Fox Searchlight Pictures

I Am Legend — 9. I Am Legend (2007)
Robert Neville was never meant to be the hero, at least not in the way I Am Legend eventually sold him. The original ending has him realizing the infected were rescuing one of their own, not attacking him, meaning he was the monster in their story. Test screenings in 2007 rejected that ambiguity, so Warner Bros. shot a simpler version where Neville sacrifices himself. Will Smith's blockbuster ending is the tidier lie. | © Warner Bros.

Get Out — 8. Get Out (2017)
A pair of flashing police lights was almost the last thing anyone saw in Get Out. Jordan Peele's original cut had Chris arrested after killing the Armitage family, cutting to him in prison. Reactions from early audiences in 2016 pushed Peele toward the version where Rod shows up in a TSA vehicle instead. Universal Pictures released that lighter cut in 2017, and it's the one people quote constantly now. | © Universal Pictures

Cropped Pretty Woman — 7. Pretty Woman (1990)
Vivian was supposed to walk away with the cash and nothing else, no fairy tale, no fire escape. Pretty Woman started as a script called "3000," a much bleaker story about sex work and class in Los Angeles. Garry Marshall reshaped it into a romantic comedy, and Richard Gere's Edward climbs the fire escape with flowers instead of leaving her behind. Buena Vista's 1990 release turned a grim draft into one of the decade's biggest date movies. | © Buena Vista Pictures

Justice League — 6. Justice League (2017)
Steppenwolf was barely a threat in Zack Snyder's original plan, with Darkseid himself set up as the real villain looming over future films. Warner Bros. brought in Joss Whedon for extensive 2017 reshoots after Snyder's departure, and huge chunks of the third act changed completely. Cyborg's role shrank, Flash got more comic relief, and the Knightmare timeline vanished from the theatrical cut entirely. Zack Snyder's Justice League, released on HBO Max in 2021, restored most of what got cut. | © Warner Bros.

Cropped Rogue One A Star Wars Story — 5. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Gareth Edwards shot most of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2015, then Disney called for months of reshoots in 2016. Tony Gilroy came aboard to rewrite the third act, sealing the fates of Jyn and Cassian for good. The corridor scene where Darth Vader tears through rebel soldiers wasn't part of the original cut at all. It was added late and became the thing people remember most. | © Walt Disney Studios

Blade Runner — 4. Blade Runner (1982)
Harrison Ford has said for years that he never wanted the voice-over narration bolted onto Blade Runner. Warner Bros. added it after 1982 test screenings left audiences confused about basic plot points. The studio also swapped in a softer final scene, sending Deckard and Rachael off into open countryside footage borrowed from The Shining. Ridley Scott's 2007 Final Cut strips both changes back out. | © Warner Bros.

E T the Extra Terrestrial — 3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
A dead alien stayed dead in early drafts of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, full stop. Melissa Mathison's script had the creature's death be permanent, with Elliott simply left to grieve. Steven Spielberg pushed for the revival and the goodbye at the spaceship instead, and that version opened in 1982 through Universal Pictures. Kids left theaters crying for a completely different reason. | © Universal Pictures

Titanic — 2. Titanic (1997)
Rose drops the Heart of the Ocean into the Atlantic near the end of Titanic, but that quiet moment almost got interrupted. An earlier cut had Brock Lovett and his crew rushing onto the deck to stop her right before she let go. James Cameron scrapped that confrontation for something with no dialogue at all. Paramount Pictures released the simpler version in 1997, and it's the one that made history. | © Paramount Pictures

The Shawshank Redemption — 1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Frank Darabont's first cut of The Shawshank Redemption ended with Red on a bus, headed toward Mexico, and nothing else. Test screenings in 1994 left people wanting to actually see Red find Andy on that beach. So Castle Rock Entertainment greenlit one more scene, shot after the fact, to close the story properly. Roger Ebert later called it one of the few endings that earns its own sentimentality. | © Castle Rock Entertainment

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Test screenings, studio notes, or last-minute panic sent these films back to the drawing board for a whole new finale. Here are 15 movies whose endings had to be completely reshot.

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Test screenings, studio notes, or last-minute panic sent these films back to the drawing board for a whole new finale. Here are 15 movies whose endings had to be completely reshot.