10 Insane Alternate Endings To 2017's Biggest Movies (So Far)

For a film to be truly great, most cinephiles would probably agree that one of the major requirements is that it comes with a killer ending.

In Hollywood, though, killer endings are notoriously difficult to pull off - audiences are more often than not left sitting in the darkness with the credits rolling, wondering where it all went wrong. When an ending goes right, however, a motion picture can find itself cemented as an absolute classic, worthy of a dozen rewatches.

Given the nature of the business, movies often come with a slew of alternate endings - all tossed aside across the length of production - and the films of 2017 (per UK release dates) are no exception to this rule. Whether you thought that the final moments of some of the year's biggest films (so far) were perfect, underwhelming, or just plain bizarre, chances are that the filmmakers involved had - at one time or another - considered going down a totally different route entirely.

In some cases, it's a good thing that the films in question got the endings that they did because what the writers and director had in mind as alternatives are plainly mad. In a lot of other cases, however, the alternate endings might have been a bit more interesting had the filmmakers in question had the balls to go through with them...

Logan, this year's brilliant meditation on the "old superhero," ends on a rather bleak note, with our battered hero finally meeting his end as his infamous healing powers finally give way. He leaves his new-found genetic daughter, Laura, to mourn him, and a new generation of mutants on the path to a future unknown.

But actor Hugh Jackman, who plays Logan in the film, originally pitched an ending to director James Mangold closer to that of Clint Eastwood's western 1992 masterpiece Unforgiven, with a kind of William Munny-esque showdown.

“You assume he’s going to die," said Jackman, referring to Munny and the blood-splattered shootout at the end of the western classic, but by taking that final action and shooting everyone down, he embraces all the darkness he’s tried to put outside him. Now he’s got to live with it, and it’s almost more devastating."

Basically, Jackman had the idea to leave Wolverine in a state of despair: a lost, broken shell of a man (well, mutant) with nothing to do but contemplate the sins of his past. In one way, this could have worked wonders, but there's a sense of closure that comes with the definitive death of the character that enriches the film overall.

In other words: Wolverine had to die, but this might've been a cool - albeit harrowing - alternative had the studio decided to shoot for it instead.