Why do movie teams shoot alternate endings?

Question

From this question, Which was the first movie with alternate ending?

These alternate endings are a special type of deleted scene. In other cases, ideas that were presented but discarded early on are alluded to by the production team in commentary or interviews.

If a movie team know these alternate endings are discarded, then why shoot them?

Is it used for sequel or prequel purposes?

Alternate ending of Butterfly Effect :

I think they shoot alternate endings because by seeing the script they can't decide which ending is better. — Gustavo Gabriel, Oct 04 '17 at 12:58
NL works as well. Ending 1 was mean and sad but ok, 2 was rather incredible, 3 creepy, and 4 too dramatic. — Cees Timmerman, Oct 05 '17 at 11:08
A) Soooo glad they did not use the alternate ending to Ronin. B) The alternate ending to Sucker Punch made it a much better (though still not great) film. — Almo, Oct 05 '17 at 15:12
" This video contains content from MC for Warner Bros., who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. " — when accessing through some VPN in Germany. — Display Name, Oct 06 '17 at 16:51

score 59 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 09 '17 at 22:12

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There is a wide variety of reasons as to why a movie might have alternate endings.

The original ending tested poorly during screen tests: In this case the director had a specific ending that made it through production, but was received negatively by test audiences, forcing the studio to re-shoot the ending to better please the target audiences. An example of this is DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story (2004) which originally had Average Joes losing at the end. (Discussed here)
The script wasn't completed when the endings were shot: in this case the details of the script are still being worked on, so the crew shoots multiple endings with the hope that one will eventually be used as the final, official ending.
The original ending was seen as too graphic or violent especially studio is trying to hit a specific rating (usually PG-13 instead of R), so the ending will be slightly edited: An example of this was Thelma and Louise (1991) (discussed here).

Only a tiny tweak here, but a fairly significant one — the first ending showed Thelma and Louise's car tumbling all the way to the canyon floor, no doubt getting pulverized in the process. Harvey Keitel's character finds the Polaroid that blew out of the car and looks at it as a helicopter heads down into the Grand Canyon to survey the wreckage. As you probably know, the updated ending is a wee bit more hopeful — we see their car drive off the cliff, but not the aftermath.
The studio or the director specifically wants multiple endings: the only example I can think of for this is Clue (1985) where the movie was shot with three different endings, each one would be randomly selected during each showing. Leaving the audience guessing which ending they would actually get.

edited Oct 09 '17 at 22:12

Roy

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answered Oct 04 '17 at 13:11

onewho

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Number 1 was filmed as an extra, not that it tested poorly. The "poor testing" was a joke in the commentary. – Tom Bowen Oct 04 '17 at 14:09
@Tom.Bowen89: #1 can still happen. From the evidence I've seen, Little Shop of Horrors would definitely qualify. – supercat Oct 04 '17 at 14:13
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@supercat yes it can definitely happen. Just not in that example. – Tom Bowen Oct 04 '17 at 14:14
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Another I've heard of similar to #2 is secrecy. In order to prevent leaks, multiple endings are shot so that no one, not even cast and crew, will know how the story will end. Though not technically a movie, this was done for Game of Thrones. – David K Oct 04 '17 at 14:34
@DavidK If I remember well, NCIS did it too for one of its final when Kate was shot (multiple ends with different membre dying). It was said that no one except some producers or the actress interpreting Kate knew who was going to really be killed. – Larme Oct 04 '17 at 14:46
@AJ The contents of another answer aren't really relevant - each answer should stand on it's own merits. Two answers can provide exactly the same data, but if one does a better job of presenting it, that's the better answer. When one answer includes everything another does and provides more, that's icing. – T.J.L. Oct 04 '17 at 15:58
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First Blood (Rambo) is a great example of #1. People just didn't want to see Stallone blow his own head off after all that emotion. – Mad Physicist Oct 04 '17 at 17:34
Major League's original ending also tested poorly so the movie was changed and scenes were (poorly) re-shot to show the owner rooting against the team. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2010/07/sports-legend-revealed-the-movie-major-league-originally-had-a-twist-ending.html – Hannover Fist Oct 04 '17 at 17:49
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Security. Plenty of environments are afraid of "leaks". Make 10 endings and no one knows until release. Edit: Or, what @David-K said.

WernerCD

Oct 04 '17 at 18:59

Was the Dodgeball alternate ending actually the original ending? From the linked discussion, it sounds like it was intentionally filmed to be a gag ending. – jamesdlin Oct 05 '17 at 01:12

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The reason you've never heard of #4 in other movies is that it quite possibly caused Clue to bomb at the box office. The different endings were marketed as different versions of the movie, because the studio hoped audiences would see the movie multiple times. Instead, moviegoers didn't know which version to see, and ended up seeing none of them. – Kevin Oct 05 '17 at 05:59

@AJHenderson The "Falcon destroyed in Jedi" thing is an urban legend. See http://starwarz.com/tbone/the-millennium-falcons-and-landos-demise/ – Steven Rands Oct 05 '17 at 09:10

@Kevin I'm not sure that's true. I remember going to multiplex and seeing the marquees saying "Clue (A)", "Clue (B)", "Clue (C)", and (at a different stage in the release), "Clue (ABC)" which showed all three endings. – Shawn V. Wilson Aug 05 '20 at 15:47

@ShawnV.Wilson: Some theaters did that. Some didn't label the endings at all. And some labeled them incorrectly. But the point is not that audiences weren't sure what they were getting. Rather, the point is that audiences didn't know why they ought to prefer "A", "B", or "C" in particular, so they went to none of them. – Kevin Aug 05 '20 at 22:15

@Kevin Or maybe audiences just weren't that interested in seeing a movie based on a board game. Are there a lot of board-game-based movies that are great successes at the box office? – Kyralessa Jun 25 '21 at 16:02

@Kyralessa: I don't know about "a lot," since they haven't made very many board game movies in the first place, but Wikipedia tells me that this movie was a commercial success (but critically panned). – Kevin Jun 25 '21 at 17:23

That's really stretching the definition of "board game." – Kyralessa Jun 25 '21 at 18:22

score 24 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 06 '17 at 19:51

There can be many reasons for shooting alternate endings; a few of them are:

To pass censorship:

In 1975's Bollywood film Sholay the director had a different vision for the ending from the one we see in theaters but the Board of Censors didn't allow them to show the brutal killing of the antagonist, and made them re-shoot the scene as a police arrest of the antagonist. But they later showed the original ending on the UK satellite channel 'Zee TV'.

From Wikipedia :

The director's original cut of Sholay has a different ending in which Thakur kills Gabbar, along with some additional violent scenes. Gabbar's death scene, and the scene in which the imam's son is killed, were cut from the film by India's Censor Board, as was the scene in which Thakur's family is massacred. The Censor Board was concerned about the violence, and that viewers may be influenced to violate the law by punishing people severely. Although Sippy fought to keep the scenes, eventually he had to re-shoot the ending of the film, and as directed by the Censor Board, have the police arrive just before Thakur can kill Gabbar. The censored theatrical version was the only one seen by audiences for fifteen years. The original, unedited cut of the film finally came out in a British release on VHS in 1990. Since then, Eros International has released two versions on DVD. The director's cut of the film preserves the original full frame and is 204 minutes in length; the censored widescreen version is 198 minutes long.

_{Related question: How many different endings does Sholay have?}
To test the screening response:

Sometimes directors shoot new endings to satisfy the negative responses during test screenings. The Butterfly Effect suffered the same fate too, where it was felt that the original ending was too dark, so they shot multiple new endings and selected one of them and made the other three available on DVD.

_{Related question: What was the original ending and why was it changed?}
As an extra feature for DVD:

Some endings never made to the final scripts, or were cut and used in the end as added features for DVDs for sales purpose. Sometimes these alternate endings are not even shot and are presented as director/cast/crew commentary.
Director vs producer/studio differences

Salt had two endings because producers didn't allow the director's vision. From Wikipedia:

The Director's Cut was described by Noyce as "my own personal take on the material, free from the politics and restrictions of producers, studio or censorship ratings."

_{Related question: Why does Salt have two different endings?}

Another example of a (terrible) alternate ending being shot to meet the ludicrous requirements of censors is https://yourcinematicsurvivalkit.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/vertigos-alternate-ending/ -- the thought that the murder that motivates the entire story might go unpunished was apparently too much for censors at the time; fortunately Midge is tuned in to the all-exposition radio station. — Eric Lippert, Oct 04 '17 at 19:00

niemiro · Answer 3 · 2017-10-04T15:55:24.947

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To avoid leaks - Game of Thrones springs to mind

During a recent talk at his alma mater, HBO programming president Casey Bloys said the show is taking measures avoid revealing its ending. "I know in 'Game of Thrones,' the ending, they're going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really know what happens," Bloys said in a recording of his Moravian College speech released and first reported by The Morning Call.

"You have to do that on a long show. Because when you're shooting something, people know," he added. "They're going to shoot multiple versions so that there's no real definitive answer until the end."

(Source)

The studio shoots and edits multiple endings, all of them plausible, so the production crew & cast do not know which will be used and cannot leak anything meaningful to the media.

Only the Director and an extremely few and carefully selected scriptwriters/producers know until the very last minute which ending will actually be used. That way it's a surprise to everyone.

edited Oct 04 '17 at 15:55

answered Oct 04 '17 at 14:48

niemiro

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@Thunderforge I've added one source although there are plenty of other news outlets running the same story. HBO refused to confirm or deny the report. Ultimately, however, the theory makes sense regardless of the situation with Game of Thrones specifically. – niemiro Oct 04 '17 at 14:55
I've added a quote from the article so that your answer is still valid if and when the link goes dead – Thunderforge Oct 04 '17 at 15:33
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And just to add to the multiple TV show "endings", LOST season 4 finale also shot alternate endings for whom was in the coffin... – Darth Locke Oct 04 '17 at 17:20
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Star Wars did something similar with the classic "father" line, where the words spoken during the shoot were not the words in the release. I'm pretty sure that was done specifically to avoid leaks. – Michael Oct 04 '17 at 20:54
I've heard that soap operas do this a lot. In the 70's, for the reveal of the famous "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of Dallas, they filmed many different characters pulling the trigger. Since J.R. was not well liked, pretty much everyone was a legitimate suspect. (But they also filmed J.R. shooting J.R.!) – Shawn V. Wilson Oct 06 '17 at 02:35
@ShawnV.Wilson J.R. shooting J.R. probably relates to the two seasons he spent as Doctor Who's companion. Or will spend. Time travel is very confusing. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Oct 06 '17 at 06:03
Same for Who Shot Mr Burns? – can-ned_food Oct 07 '17 at 07:38

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 05 '17 at 16:23

Also, aside the already mentioned above, it could also can come down to budget or timing. If an ending is far too ambitious, it may exceed the remaining funds available and they have to either find additional funding or rewrite. If they are under pressure to complete before a date, a rewrite may be necessary and the already filmed ending might be scraped entirely.

Monty Python's Holy Grail did this, but instead of reshooting, they just took a left-turn and changed the ending to avoid shooting a costly and massive battle scene.

The movie was supposed to end in a large battle scene between King Arthur’s knights and the outraaageous French forces, but it quickly became apparent the production was out of money and couldn’t afford to shoot the scene. The solution? Just as the siege is about to begin, modern-day police enter the scene and shut down production, investigating the murder of famous historian ‘Frank’ earlier in the movie. Source

As such, there might be abandoned endings that never get full treatment, might have no CGI added or only simple CGI for placement.

Another reason might be to cut down the length of the film:

...the transmission tower for the plans was separate from the main base on Scarif. To transmit the plans, they had to escape and run along the beach and go up the tower. In cutting the film, it just felt too long. We had to find ways to compress the third act, which was quite long as it was. And one real, fast, brutal solution was to put the tower in the base, so they don’t have to run across the beach and do all of that stuff to get there. Source

I've seen it happen firsthand working on TV shows and movies, where they completely scrap the scenes, reshoot, or rewrite. I've got alternate versions that the world will never see floating in my brain, and if I watch the scene replacement, I can't help but to think of what it was.

Why do movie teams shoot alternate endings?

4 Answers4