What if the ending of your favorite movie weren’t quite the end? In Hollywood, alternate endings give you the chance to explore what might have been. An alternate ending occurs when the production originally had a different idea for the movie's ending.
In some cases, it’s an early idea that was dismissed, or one that made it into writing and filming before screen tests determined that a different ending was necessary. Either way, it can be fun to explore the “what ifs” of your favorite movie’s end. Use our guide to find six alternate movie endings you probably never knew about.
Blade Runner (1982)
Although it’s difficult to imagine such a seminal movie as Blade Runner as anything other than it is, but the film had three alternate endings due to studio interference. The theatrical cut boasts the “happy ending” that Warner Bros. wanted and sees Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and Rachael (Sean Young) driving into the mountains with a voiceover suggesting Rachael is immune to the termination date.
Blade Runner also had a director’s cut and a final cut that more closely aligned with director Ridley Scott’s vision, erasing the voiceover and the happy ending. In these versions, the film ends ambiguously after suggesting Deckard is a replicant through a unicorn dream. While fans of happy endings may enjoy the theatrical cut, it certainly feels tacked on at the last minute, whereas the other versions fit the movie's tone and also open the door to interpretation and debate.
Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Lilo & Stitch has an alternate ending for quite a dark reason. The movie ends with Jumba (David Ogden Stiers), Peakley (Kevin McDonald), Nani (Tia Carrere), and Stitch teaming up to save Lilo (Daveigh Chase) by pursuing her in Jumba’s spaceship. Originally, though, the ending saw the team hijack a plane at Lihue Airport to pursue Lilo. Stitch infiltrates the plane as it’s going down the runway and kicks the pilots and passengers out. While chasing after Lilo, Jumba narrowly avoids crashing the plane into buildings in the city.
However, near the end of Lilo & Stitch’s production, the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. It cast the hijacking scene in a new light, prompting the production to alter it by switching the plane for a spaceship and having it fly through the mountains rather than a city. Lilo & Stitch is just one of several movies that had to be altered following 9/11.
28 Days Later (2002)
28 Days Later’s ending is ambiguous yet offers a glimmer of hope as Jim (Cillian Murphy) tries to flag down a plane. Other endings were bleaker or even more ambiguous. The first ending director Danny Boyle worked with was incomplete. Due to budgeting restraints, it would’ve ended with a freeze-frame in which Jim, Selena (Naomie Harris), and Hannah (Megan Burns) ram their cab into the gates of the mansion during their escape.
Fortunately, the studio gave 28 Days Later the budget to film a real ending. Initially, they filmed an ending in which Jim dies on the operating table, but screen-test audiences found it to be too bleak. In one more radical alternate ending that Boyle storyboarded, Jim would’ve sacrificed himself to save Frank (Brendan Gleeson) with the odd revelation that a blood transfusion can cure the disease. In the end, 28 Days Later found a more delicate way to toe the line between hope and bleakness.
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
The Butterfly Effect is a time-travel movie in which a young man, Evan (Ashton Kutcher), tries to change events to give his friends less traumatic lives. There are many ways he could’ve done this, which is why the film has four endings. In the theatrical cut, Evan changes events by ensuring that he and Kayleigh (Amy Smart) never become friends, thereby sparing her the trauma. However, there is a happier alternate ending where Evan and Kayleigh meet later in life, and Evan approaches her.
In another version of the happy ending, The Butterfly Effect leaves it ambiguous whether Evan approaches Kayleigh. One additional and very dark ending sees Evan realize he’s the source of the tragedy in his friend's life, and so going back in time to his mother’s womb, he strangles himself with his umbilical cord. Like 28 Days Later, The Butterfly Effect ultimately found balance between its dark subject matter and hope with its theatrical ending.
I Am Legend (2007)
I Am Legend’s theatrical cut ends with Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) becoming a “legend” as he sacrifices himself to save Anna (Alice Braga) and Ethan (Charlie Tahan), giving them a chance to spread the cure for Darkseekers. While the heroic and bittersweet sacrifice is the preferred and accepted ending, you may be surprised to learn it’s actually the alternate ending. The original, canonical ending changes everything.
In the original ending, the Alpha Darkseeker (Dash Mihok) confronts Neville in his lab. However, Neville realizes that he’s not there to attack, but to retrieve his mate. Neville has an epiphany as he recognizes his inhumane treatment of the Darkseekers, and gives the Alpha back his mate, causing the Darkseekers to leave in peace. Instead of sacrificing himself, he survives, and the movie ends happily. While the canonical version aligns with the book, screen test audiences hated it so much that the theatrical cut was shot.
Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016)
Bridget Jones's Baby’s ending solves the film's central mystery by revealing the father of Bridget Jones’s (Renée Zellweger) baby. During filming, though, even the cast didn’t know who the father was. The production kept the father's identity a secret by filming three alternate endings. Ultimately, the final version revealed that Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) was the father, and he and Jones had their happy ending together.
According to Zellweger, the alternate endings swapped around the fathers. Hence, an alternate version presumably would’ve unveiled Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey) as the father and seen him and Jones together. Another version may have seen her end up with neither, or perhaps end up with the man who wasn’t the father. Bridget Jones’s Baby went with the ending that earned the most positive reactions during screen tests, though the continued fan debate over who Jones should’ve ended up with suggests not everyone was on board with the final cut.
