8 Early Drafts That Almost Ruined Great Movies

This one's a little different, because instead of it being a bad idea from an early draft being removed, it's a great dropped idea overpowering what came after.

The screenplay for Seven went through several different drafts of varying levels of sadism, and each of these went through the hands of a range of directors. When it came round to David Fincher, the version of the film New Line were pushing ended with a thrilling race against time where Detectives Mills and Somerset raced to save the life of Mills' wife Tracy from Deadly Sin killer John Doe.

However, he got sent the wrong version; an early take that had Doe kill Tracy and put her decapitated head in a box as the final part of his scheme, forcing Mills to kill him in Envy. You know, the ending we got. Fincher loved the bleakness of it so much he refused to take the film on unless this ending was used. With the backing of Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, he got his way.

The film's ending did differ slightly from the script at the end, however - that Hemingway quote was inserted to try and avoid it being too depressing. Emphasis on the "try".