10 First Draft Movie Ideas Better Than What We Got

1. It Ends With A Surreal Johnny Depp Cameo - Birdman

The Original Idea

Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Best Picture and Best Director-winning drama almost concluded in even more bats*** crazy fashion than it actually did.

In the first draft, after Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) shoots himself on stage, a seamless single-take would reveal that Thomson received rave reviews for his performance, as we pass backstage to a dressing room.

Inside, Johnny Depp is kitting himself up in the Riggan Thomson wig, while a Pirates of the Caribbean poster is visible in the background, and Depp says to himself in his Jack Sparrow voice, "What the f*** are we doing here, mate?"

Birdman co-writer Alex Dinelaris said of the planned ending, "It was going to be the satire of the endless loop of that", and frankly, it sounds absolutely hilarious.

What We Got

The final ending is no slouch either, if much more frustrating. Thomson wakes up in the hospital and decides to take a stroll out of his window, after which his terrified daughter Sam (Emma Stone) looks out the window, peers down, then up and smiles.

Did Riggan truly become Birdman and take flight, or this simply a visual allegory and Thomson is splattered all over the pavement below?

It's agonised audiences ever since the film released, and rightly so, but the Depp cameo just feels like a punchier final note on which to end things, offering up one final rib on Hollywood's gluttonous excess.