15 Sci-Fi Movie Endings That Would Have Changed Everything

3. 28 Days Later (2002)

Danny Boyle’s 28 series has rocketed back onto our screens after being MIA for nearly two decades. Beaten and left for dead by the non-Boyle directed sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007), the franchise almost didn’t make it back, but thanks to the same ingenuity the director showed the first time round we now have a massive, zombie(-ish) infected world to explore.

And what a first time round it was. 28 Days Later arrived when new technology had been embraced by most movie houses, and yet it shot exclusively on digital, giving it a homemade feel that makes the story of Jim (Cilian Murphy) – a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to find the deadly rage virus has decimated his world – all the more real. We journey with him as he experiences the best and worst of humanity’s remnants, and in the final sequence he takes a bullet in the stomach from the evil Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston). Thankfully, Jim survives, and 28 days later he’s on the mend in a remote cottage with his companions Selena and Hannah (Naomie Harris and Megan Burns).

But another ending was filmed, in which Jim dies from his wounds and the women are left to fend for themselves – throwing not just the gains of the film, but Jim’s potentially pivotal future in the franchise out the window. And, perplexingly, the US distributors (Fox) opted to add this on as a post-credits “what if” to their theatrical release…