10 Original Endings That Would Have Ruined Great Movies

4. Dawn Of The Dead (1978)

The Ending We Got: Once they've had all the fun a group of people could possibly have in an abandoned mall packed to the hilt with flesh-eating zombies, George A. Romero's band of mis-fit survivors prepare to escape, although only Francine manages to get to the rooftop where she plans to pilot a helicopter to freedom.

Peter, locked in a cupboard, realises that he's made a real mess of that whole escaping thing, and contemplates blowing his own brains out. But then Peter realises that killing himself is just a really douchebaggy way to go, and launches into a roaring rampage through the zombie haul to some seriously heroic musical cues, before eventually meeting back up with Francine, who's super glad to see that he didn't wimp out. They fly off and live happily ever after. Or probably not, but you know how it is.

The Original Ending: Or how about Peter does shoot the brains out of his own skull and Francine, like, commits suicide by shoving her head into the spinning blades of a helicopter? That was how it was originally going to play out, anyway.

Romero even planned to have the end credits rolling over a shot of the helicopter blades whirring and then suddenly shutting down, implying that should they have managed to fly away, their trip would have been cut short by the fact that their escape vehicle would take a nose-dive into God's green Earth. This was all scrapped before Romero ever got a chance to film it, of course, though some photos do exist, and you can probably track them down if you're not lazy like us.