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Movie Endings Changed After Test Screenings: What the Filmmakers Said

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Some of the best-known endings of the 1980s were not the endings their filmmakers first shot: Fatal Attraction, Little Shop of Horrors, Pretty in Pink and Blade Runner were all reworked after preview audiences saw them. For three of them the planned version can still be seen: the Fatal Attraction and Little Shop originals as home video extras or restorations, and Blade Runner in Ridley Scott’s later cuts.

Spoiler note: this piece describes the original and released endings of all four films.

The short version: Endings changed after test screenings usually move toward relief, a dead villain or a couple that gets together. Frank Oz put a number on it for Little Shop of Horrors, which scored a 13 when it needed 55. But the accounts are not always simple. Adrian Lyne says he, not the audience, decided to change Fatal Attraction, and Glenn Close came to agree with the change she had resisted.

Film Ending that tested Ending that was released
Blade Runner (1982) No narration, no escape sequence Ford voice-over and a romantic getaway
Pretty in Pink (1986) Andie ends up with Duckie Andie and Blane reunite at the prom
Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Audrey II eats Seymour and Audrey, then takes over New York Seymour destroys the plant and marries Audrey
Fatal Attraction (1987) Alex kills herself, staged as Madama Butterfly Beth shoots Alex in the family home

Why endings changed after test screenings so often

A test screening shows a nearly finished film to a recruited audience, who then fill in cards rating it and saying whether they would recommend it. Oz described the stakes in an account quoted by /Film: “You have to have a 55 percent ‘recommend’ to really be released, and we got a 13.” Low scores on a single scene are hard to fix in the edit when the scene is the ending, which is why so many of these stories end in reshoots, sometimes months after the main shoot wrapped.

Fatal Attraction (1987): the suicide ending

The script Adrian Lyne shot ended quietly and cruelly. According to the AFI Catalog, Beth Gallagher finds a tape on which Alex (Glenn Close) threatens suicide, and after Dan (Michael Douglas) is freed, she cuts her throat while staging a scene from Madama Butterfly, the opera the film references earlier. James Dearden’s first screenplay had gone darker still, with Alex succeeding in framing Dan for her murder.

Preview audiences in three West Coast cities, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, saw that version first. Half a year after the original shoot ended, the director and his leads went back to Bedford for new scenes, which The New York Times estimated cost Paramount an additional $1.3 million. The new climax is the one audiences know: Alex corners Beth in the bathroom with a knife, and Beth shoots her.

Who drove the change is disputed. The AFI Catalog records that while several reports said audiences demanded a harsher fate for Alex, “Lyne insists he was solely responsible for changing the ending because he felt the final scene did not match the emotional drama of the rest of the story.” Close resisted at the time, but at a Santa Barbara International Film Festival tribute years later she said the decision was correct, the Santa Barbara Independent reported, because the audience needed catharsis after watching the character’s behavior. Japanese audiences, offered both versions in a test market, also preferred the U.S. ending, according to Variety as cited by AFI. The suicide ending later aired on Showtime and appeared as a LaserDisc and DVD extra.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986): the plant wins

Both the stage musical and Roger Corman’s 1960 film end with the plant victorious, and Frank Oz shot it that way. In the original ending, Audrey II kills Seymour (Rick Moranis) and Audrey (Ellen Greene), then takes over New York. Test audiences in San Jose turned on it. Oz has described the night in an account quoted by /Film: “For every musical number, there was applause, they loved it, it was just fantastic…until Rick and Ellen died, and then the theatre became a refrigerator, an ice box.” He called the result “a complete disaster.” A second screening in Los Angeles went the same way.

His explanation is the clearest anyone has given for why a stage ending can fail on film: “in a stage play, you kill the leads, and they come out for a bow — in a movie, they don’t come out for a bow, they’re dead.” Later that year Oz went back to London to film a replacement finale, the AFI Catalog notes, adding that producer David Geffen also cited talk of a sequel, which a dead hero would rule out. The sequel never came. In the released version Seymour destroys the plant and marries Audrey, and Oz and writer Howard Ashman added a last shot of a grinning Audrey II bud in their front yard.

Oz has pushed back on the idea that Warner Bros. imposed the change. /Film corrected its own account at his request, stating that the changes “were mutually agreed upon by the filmmakers and the studio.” Warner Bros. restored the original 23-minute ending in 2012 for a home video release and screened it at the New York Film Festival.

Pretty in Pink (1986): Duckie loses

John Hughes wrote Pretty in Pink so that Andie (Molly Ringwald) ends up with her devoted best friend Duckie (Jon Cryer). Director Howard Deutch told HuffPost on the film’s 30th anniversary that the preview went badly: “The ending didn’t work in the test screening … That shocked everyone because the architecture of the story was that love endures and overcomes everything.” His reading of the audience was blunt: “The girls in the test screening didn’t go for that. They didn’t care about the politics; they wanted her to get the cute boy.”

Reel Chicago’s 40th-anniversary account adds that viewers loved Duckie but did not believe Andie was romantically interested in him. Hughes found the fix in the editing room, as Deutch recalled it: Blane (Andrew McCarthy) “has to go to the prom alone.” Once Blane arrives without a date, the reunion works, and Duckie gets a consolation glance from another girl. The new ending took about three weeks. It also changed the soundtrack: OMD’s song for the original finale no longer fit, so Hughes asked the band for a new one, and the result was “If You Leave.”

Blade Runner (1982): the narration and the drive

Blade Runner’s case is the most famous because the director lost control of the cut. The BFI’s account says Ridley Scott’s edit ran over budget and time, letting producers Bud Yorkin and Jerry Perenchio impose their own version; “in panicky response to negative test screenings,” they removed the unicorn sequence, added a romantic escape ending and laid in an explanatory voice-over that Harrison Ford “recorded through gritted teeth.”

Ford was more diplomatic at the time. Two days before the June 25 release, according to the AFI Catalog, he said the narration had always been planned, while sources close to the production told the Los Angeles Times it was a last-minute addition. The changes did not save the film commercially: the BFI notes it failed to recoup its $28 million budget. Scott later restored his version, first as the 1991 Director’s Cut and then as the 2007 Final Cut, without the voice-over or happy ending. Our guide to the Blade Runner cuts walks through every difference.

Do test screenings make endings better?

The record is mixed. Fatal Attraction became a best picture nominee with its reshot ending, and Close, its strongest internal critic, came around. Pretty in Pink’s new ending produced one of OMD’s biggest international hits, Reel Chicago notes. Little Shop’s original finale, once restored, won over the New York Film Festival crowd, which /Film says loved it even more than the theatrical version, and Blade Runner’s theatrical changes are now remembered mainly as something Scott undid. Other films are still argued over, from I Am Legend’s two endings to the studio cut of Brazil; when a film exists in more than one version, our explainer on director’s cuts versus theatrical cuts helps decide which to watch first.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the original ending of Fatal Attraction?

Alex kills herself with a knife, in a reenactment of Madama Butterfly, after a tape of her threatening suicide surfaces, as the AFI Catalog describes the shooting script. The released ending, shot six months later, has Beth shoot Alex.

Why was the ending of Little Shop of Horrors changed?

Test audiences in San Jose and Los Angeles rejected the original ending, in which the plant kills Seymour and Audrey. Frank Oz has said the film scored a 13 when it needed a 55 percent recommend score.

Who did Andie originally end up with in Pretty in Pink?

Duckie. Test audiences did not accept it, director Howard Deutch said, and the prom ending was reshot so Andie reunites with Blane.

Why does Blade Runner have a voice-over?

The producers added the narration and a happier ending after negative test screenings, according to the BFI. Ridley Scott removed both in the 1991 Director’s Cut and the 2007 Final Cut.

Can you watch the original Little Shop of Horrors ending?

Yes. Warner Bros. restored the 23-minute original ending in 2012 for a home video release of the director’s cut.

Sources

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