10 Famous Movie Endings That Were Total Accidents

The story behind the ending of David Fincher's Se7en is a little different to every other movie on this list, because the ending that we got was indeed the one that the cast and crew set out to film during shooting.

But the fact that this ending made its way into the film was itself no less of an accident, albeit one which occurred during the earlier stages of pre-production.

When writer Andrew Kevin Walker originally got the script optioned, it was going to be directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) who requested that the infamous "wife's head in a box" ending be changed.

Walker, wanting to get his movie made, understandably complied, but Chechik ultimately bounced off the project and so it was shopped around to other directors in Hollywood.

It was eventually brought to David Fincher, who was fresh off the traumatic production of Alien 3, and when Fincher was sent the script, whoever did so inadvertently sent him Walker's original draft with the head-in-box in tact.

Fincher loved it, but when the studio informed him they'd sent him the wrong draft and then sent over the "correct" version, the director read it and insisted he wasn't interested.

But thanks to some additional leaning from star Brad Pitt, the creatives were able to secure the grim original ending and Fincher agreed to come aboard.

And yet, none of this would've ever happened were it not for a simple administrative accident when sending Fincher the script.

In a parallel universe, Fincher got the "right" version of the script, turned it down, and some random hack made the sanitised version instead. Terrifying.