20 Things You Didn't Know About 2021's Oscar Nominees
1. The Original Ending Was VERY Different - Promising Young Woman
Promising Young Woman ends in highly controversial fashion, with protagonist Cassie being suffocated to death by the target of her revenge crusade, Al Monroe (Chris Lowell).
Cassie's corpse is then burned by Al, but just as it seems like he's gotten away with it, it turns out she set a contingency plan in place, and the cops arrest Al for her murder.
But the film's climax actually went through several iterations - initially, writer Emerald Fennell considered a more flippant ending where Cassie cuts Al's penis off and leaves the bachelor party while coolly smoking a cigarette.
She decided this was "too easy" and her first finished draft ultimately concluded with Cassie's body being disposed of, implying that Al got away with her murder.
And while Fennell still considers that the most realistic end-point for Cassie's story, her financiers encouraged her to add a slightly less-depressing "gotcha!" onto the end.