10 Classic Movies That Almost Had Completely Different Plots

By Joseph Ford /

In an ideal world, the film production process would go something like this: a clever writer comes up with an idea, they convert this idea into a script, someone gives them a lot of money to make that script and, following a smooth production process in which a group of happy actors say every line of dialogue as written in the script, the finished film ends up in theatres, a living, flickering manifestation of the clever writer's original idea. What have I missed out? Well, maybe the studio won't cough up the money for the script until the writer makes some changes. Maybe practical considerations intervene to ensure that the director can't film certain scenes. Maybe, after the film is completed, a test screening reveals that the film is just not working and needs to be re-edited. These are just a few of the filters that pop up in the production process to ensure that the chances of a film making a perfect transposition from initial idea to screen are virtually zero. Some changes are more drastic than others, however, and can seem even more so when attached to films which have entered the cultural pantheon under the banner of €œclassic." So, if you've never heard of the version of Star Wars where Han Solo was an alien, or the version of Pretty Woman where Vivian was a drug addict, or the version of It's A Wonderful Life that ended with a killing spree (only one of those was a Simpsons reference, I swear), let's take a look at some classic movies that could've turned out a whole lot different...