10 Movies That Almost Had Much Better Endings

2. Law Abiding Citizen

The Actual Ending

After spending the entire movie launching his preposterous - and preposterously entertaining - revenge crusade against the broken American legal system, vigilante Clyde Shelton's (Gerard Butler) plan to blow up City Hall and kill the Mayor backfires horribly.

Ultimately, our thoroughly unlikeable attorney "hero" Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) discovers the bomb and plants it in Shelton's own jail cell without him knowing, killing him and saving the day.

The One We Almost Got

Though it's often stated that Jamie Foxx insisted upon the film's original ending being changed, that's actually not true at all according to those who worked on Law Abiding Citizen.

However, it is true that the story went through numerous iterations during shooting, as the filmmakers struggled to reconcile how much more likeable Clyde was than Nick.

As a result, though most of the other planned endings still resulted in Clyde's death, they were decidedly less charitable to Nick than in the final cut.

One proposed ending saw Nick actually killing Clyde by hand, resulting in him ending up in jail and making a deal with the DA, effectively turning him into the new Clyde and ensuring that the cynical, corrupt legal system continues to perpetuate.

Why It Would've Been Better

The theatrical finale leaves a sour taste because Nick's happy ending, where he sits down to watch his daughter's musical recital, just doesn't feel remotely earned.

There's not much of a feeling that he's really changed in any way, and so his "victory" over Clyde feels completely hollow and unsatisfying.

The alternate ending is a fairer compromise, in that while it still ends with the fan favourite character dead, at least Nick is also forever tarnished by his behaviour.