10 Times Movies Panicked And CHANGED THE ENDING Just Before Release

Believe it or not, despite being such a polished, assured genre classic, Bride of Frankenstein's climax was still being deliberated over mere days before it premiered on April 19, 1935.

The much anticipated horror sequel was previewed just two weeks earlier, where director James Whale felt he'd made a mistake by having the film end with the deaths of Henry and Elizabeth Frankenstein (Colin Clive and Valerie Hobson) alongside the Monster (Boris Karloff), the Bride (Elsa Lanchester), and Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger).

And so, with time running out, Whale decided to shoot a new ending in which the couple survived, which was filmed and spliced into the edit literally days before its premiere.

There's getting down to the wire and then there's rejigging the climax of your sequel with mere days to go. Wild. Though this and other production issues caused Bride to go $100,000 over budget, it nevertheless went on to turn a hefty profit.