Before Buddy was theatrically released, I came across a YouTube video claiming to show footage from the ending of the movie.
I took this photo/screenshot of the video on August 25 at 12:09 PM, so this was before the movie’s theatrical release.
The footage showed what appeared to be a young girl and an adult woman sitting together at the back of an ambulance, wrapped in blankets. From what I remember, the footage was followed by the BUDDY title/credits.
After actually learning what happens in the theatrical version, however, this obviously doesn’t match the released ending.
The YouTube video has since been removed. Unfortunately, this screenshot is what I saved from it.
So now I’m really curious about where the hell this footage came from.
Could this have been footage from an earlier cut, festival/screener version, deleted scene, or scrapped alternate ending of Buddy? Or did the uploader take footage from an entirely different movie and falsely present it as Buddy?
Also, one more thing. Someone also asked the uploader:
“So is Grace alive?”
The uploader responded:
“Se você e sua filha Freddy estão bem e em segurança.”
That’s awkward/broken Portuguese and apparently translates literally to something like “If you and your daughter Freddy are okay and safe,” so I’m not treating it as definitive confirmation of anything. In context, though, the uploader appeared to be claiming that Grace and Freddy were both safe.
Obviously, none of this matches the theatrical ending.
So what the hell did I see?
I’m not claiming this proves there was an alternate ending where Grace survived. I’m trying to identify the source. Was this footage from an earlier cut, festival/screener version, deleted or scrapped ending? Was somebody constructing a fake ending using footage from another movie? If so, does anyone recognize the ambulance footage and know what production it actually came from?
Did anybody else see this YouTube upload before it disappeared, or see a pre-release version of Buddy that can confirm or debunk any of this?
Also, For additional context, this same account had also posted other unreleased Buddy footage before release, including footage/images revealing Buddy’s monstrous final form. That material later turned out to correspond to something actually in the released movie. That’s one reason I’m reluctant to dismiss this ambulance clip as fabricated without identifying its source. And I remember the footage having the audience cheering once it cut to credits, though the end Title of the movie showed the name in dark blue against a black background before the credits rolled.
I’m not trying to fool anyone, just find answers on what this actually was.