McG Considered Releasing ‘This Means War’ With Alternate Endings
It takes a gutsy filmmaker — and, perhaps more to the point, a gutsy studio — to emulate the strange release of the 1985 filmClue. When originally released,Cluewent out with three different endings, and audiences didn’t know which one they were going to see. (There’s also a reported fourth ending, but that’s a topic for another post.) The endings were collected for the home video release, and most people have seen the edit ofCluewhere each possible ending is played in succession.
McGhas just finishedThis Means War, the film in whichTom HardyandChris Pineplay best friends and fellow CIA operatives who discover they’re both dating the same woman, played byReese Witherspoon. It’s a big, weird romcom, essentially, and as such might not be the most serious movie around. And so at one stage of development, the idea of doing Clue-style multiple endings was thrown around. No real spoilers follow, but if you don’t want to know anything at all about how this movie might end, beware what lies below the jump.Movielinereports that at a press day forThis Means War, McG said,
One ending would have had Witherspoon’s character choosing Hardy, the other Pine. McG also joked about a third ending, “where the two boys end up in each other’s arms.” But the concept behind this movie was evidently too important to be trifled with by releasing multiple endings. Too bad. (Personally, I’m hoping that Reese also turns out to be some sort of intelligence agent who is playing the guys against one another, and ends up killing them both in the end.)
Perhaps the best quote of the day references McG’s last big film, however, rather thanThis Means War, when Tom Hardy insisted that he should have shot the man on man ending:
I know, I know…I pussed out on the ending ofTerminator 4… so I should’ve gone for the dark ending of this one.
