Filmmaking is a tricky business.
It's a long journey from the script to the screen, and a lot of great and not-so-great
scenes get left on the cutting room floor, costing the studio time and money.
Here's a look at some of our favorite films whose deleted scenes came at a high price
— creatively and financially.
World War Z's darker final act
World War Z didn't just trim an expensive scene or two — this movie's entire third
act was gutted and replaced in post-production.
In the theatrical ending, the movie concluded with Brad Pitt's Gerry Lane wandering around
a research laboratory and discovering the scientific solution to all the world's zombie
problems.
But in the original shoot, things were supposed to be a lot grimmer for our hero.
Before the revisions, Gerry and his sidekick Segen would've made it to Russia to do a blockbuster-sized
battle with zombies and discover a method of undead-defeat the old-fashioned way.
But there was still trouble on the homefront, as his wife and children were in North America,
and she'd turned to prostitution to provide for her family and ultimately shacked up with
his former colleague, played by Matthew Fox.
This would've culminated in Pitt's character questing across Siberia to make way to his
now-estranged wife, leaving room for what would've been a full-on trilogy of World War
Z films.
But the studio wanted a happier ending for the film and brought in a bunch of new creatives
to rewrite and reshoot the third act.
And everything else, including almost all of Fox's parts, were left on the cutting room
floor, never to see the light of day.
Not only did Paramount lose the money they'd already spent for the clipped scenes, but
the re-shoots ended up costing a whopping $25 million as well.
And that, friends, is what you call a pricey pivot.
Rogue's scenes in X-Men: Days of Future Past
With its crazy time-travel plot, X-Men: Days of Future Past is packed with familiar faces,
but unfortunately, that means limited screen time for some of our favorite characters,
including Anna Paquin's Rogue.
The True Blood actress spent a week filming several elaborate scenes for the 2014 blockbuster
alongside fellow X-Men vets, but none of it wound up in the finished film.
Director Bryan Singer told Entertainment Weekly, "Through the editing process, the sequence
became extraneous…like many things in the editing process, it was an embarrassment of
riches and it was just one of the things that had to go."
After fan outcry, Singer and 20th Century Fox released a Rogue Cut of the film on DVD,
restoring 17 minutes of previously cut footage that included Paquin's sequences.
The original tragic ending of Little Shop of Horrors
If all had gone as director Frank Oz and screenwriter Howard Ashman had initially planned, this
1986 adaptation of the Broadway musical wouldn't have ended quite as happily.
The pair intended to use the ending from the stage version of Little Shop of Horrors, with
Audrey II eating Audrey and Seymour and terrorizing the world — but test audiences hated it.
"Feed me."
"Does it have to be human?"
"Does it have to be mine?!"
Oz recalled to Entertainment Weekly, "For every musical number there was applause, they
loved it, it was just fantastic…until we killed our two leads.
And then the theater became a refrigerator, an icebox."
In order to get the movie released, they needed better audience approval, so the elaborate
23-minute sequence, which cost a reported $5 million, was scrapped and a new ending
was shot with the two leads alive and well.
Though a black-and-white version of the original ending was included on a 1998 DVD release,
full-color footage was finally included in a Director's Cut edition Blu-ray in 2012.
The Jitterbug dance number from The Wizard of Oz
The Wicked Witch uses a lot of different tactics to try to stop Dorothy and her friends in
The Wizard of Oz, but one never made it into the final version of the film.
In the lost "Jitterbug" sequence, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion
travel through the Haunted Woods only to be attacked by evil bugs that cause them to break
out in song and dance.
Also a popular dance style at the time, the "Jitterbug" was actually a remnant of an older
version of the script that was tossed out.
The whole number cost about $80,000 and took five weeks to shoot, but it was cut when producers
decided the film was too long.
Though the actual footage was destroyed, composer Harold Arlen captured a dress rehearsal of
the number on video, later included as an extra on the DVD version of the film.
Who knows?
Maybe the original footage will turn up in a studio storage space like Dorothy's old
ruby slippers did.
Returning to Krypton in Superman Returns
Before DC and Warner Brothers decided to reboot the Superman franchise yet again in 2013 with
Zack Snyder at the helm, Bryan Singer's 2006 entry starring Brandon Routh as the Man of
Steel flew into movie theaters with...fairly mixed reviews.
Superman Returns also nearly arrived with a completely different opening sequence.
While the basic plot of the film deals with Superman's return to Earth after a five-year
absence, Singer shot a wordless, visually stunning five-minute opening sequence with
Routh's Superman visiting what was left of his home planet, Krypton.
The scene, which cost an estimated $10 million, is slow and contemplative rather than bombastic
and exciting.
Maybe that's why producers ultimately had Singer cut it.
The scene was finally released as an extra on the 2011 Superman Anthology Blu-ray set,
further dividing critics and fans on the one-off superhero flick.
Eric Stoltz's scenes from Back to the Future
As most Back to the Future fans know, Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly,
the puffy vest-wearing teenager sent back to 1955 in a souped-up DeLorean.
Director Robert Zemeckis initially wanted to hire Michael J. Fox, but his Family Ties
shooting schedule was too demanding at the time, and he hired Stoltz instead.
Five weeks into filming, Zemeckis and producer Steven Spielberg knew they needed to replace
Stoltz because he just wasn't funny enough.
Zemeckis and Spielberg quickly negotiated with Universal to replace Stoltz with Fox,
adding a reported $3 million to the film's budget and extra time onto its shooting schedule.
Soon Fox was on set at the Twin Pines Mall shooting with Christopher Lloyd, and the rest,
of course, is history …
"Great Scott!"
"I know, this is heavy."
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