25 Things You Didn’t Know About Se7en
21. Everyone Fought To Keep That Original Screenplay… And That Ending
Not only did Fincher go for the original script with the original ending and the original screenwriter, but he fought hard to keep them all - and so did everyone else on the project.
By the time the film was in the final stages of pre-production, it had Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey attached to it, and the blessing of New Line’s firecracker president of production, wunderkind movie executive Michael De Luca. Whenever Fincher’s ideas caused trouble, or lower-ranking executives got the wind up them about the stupefying bleakness of it all - especially that ending - De Luca and Fincher’s leads would step in.
At one point, ideas were coming down the pipe that involved sanitising the ending by having the dog’s head in the box, or - no word of a lie - a TV monitor showing Tracy Mills kidnapped and in peril, but rescuable. Fincher et al stuck to their guns: the ending was consonant with the very heart of the story, and it needed to be what it was. Head-in-a-f*cking-box.
Walker is in no doubt as to what kept his movie on course: David Fincher’s collaborative mindset and laser focus, and the support of people with influence who believed in the project as much as he did.