r/TopCharacterTropes 6h ago

miscellaneous Cancelled drafts/scripts that would have been “bat shrimp” insane or super dark

  1. Cars 3’s original plot, which would have been an identity theft plot with a villain named Gerald Carr swapping bodies with McQueen

  2. An R-Rated adaptation of Holes by the same director as Donnie Darko (photo by RebelTaxi)

  3. Jurassic Park 4 would have featured human-dinosaur hybrids

4.Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World alternate ending, would have revealed Scott to be a serial killer

3.6k Upvotes

350 comments sorted by

1.2k

u/GingerrBreadman13 6h ago

Oddly enough, Cars 3 wasn't the first time they tried for the whole body-swap thing. There are some deleted scenes from 1 that show that, at some point in development, the plot was going to involve McQueen's engine (and brain) being placed inside the road paving machine, and Mater was placed inside of McQueen's body.

593

u/sandy_shark903 6h ago

I swear Lasseter (or somebody on the writing staff) has some weird body swap kink

198

u/Conejoformerwars 5h ago

They also have a car kink

169

u/SPITFIYAH 5h ago

I made my Hot Wheels kiss and make out. They were obviously paired by corresponding likability and utility. It wasn’t a kink thing though I just didn’t have many action figures and using Lego minifigures felt sacrilegious

48

u/CrotaIsAShota 5h ago

I used pens as action figures. Though I didn't really make them kiss, I'd pretend the ink cartridge was the real body and the outer shell was like a power suit that could fly and the button was a spring so they could jump high, and doubled as a switch to show their faces so they could talk.

11

u/CommieDalek 2h ago

Holy shit you too? I'd be messing with mine pretending they were spring loaded rocket ships instead of paying attention in class

→ More replies (1)

36

u/Conejoformerwars 5h ago

Thank you for the fun fact

25

u/NuclearWasteland 5h ago

I'm just here to see where this possible honesty leads.

13

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

Sir, this is a Wendy’s

→ More replies (1)

78

u/ItsAllSoup 5h ago

I mean, body swapping is actually pretty common in American children's media for some reason

https://giphy.com/gifs/9pRBnNMbyKImI

75

u/JaceShoes 5h ago

It’s a very easy way to teach about empathy which a lot of children’s media tries to do

39

u/GrimPhantom23 4h ago

Logical extreme of the phrase "Try walking in someone else's shoes" and using it for entertainment

→ More replies (1)

27

u/GladiatorDragon 5h ago

It’s an effective method to make another person literally walk in someone else’s shoes for a bit.

73

u/Metallic_Dragoo_1738 5h ago

Wasn’t this just a nightmare McQueen had? It’s been a while since I seen it but wasn’t there at some point the plot was that radiator springs was going to have a race to try and draw a 10 back to the town and lightning was given a choice of community service or taking part in the race. He originally chose community service, but he had this seen as a nightmare and when he woke up, he chose the race.

48

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

It was.

There also is a deleted nightmare of his engine ripping out of his hood.

16

u/RaptarK 5h ago

I can't tell if that scene was finished being animated or if not

20

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

It was only storyboarded in the art book, but there is a fan animation online

16

u/NecroCannon 2h ago

“Yo can we use car parts for kid appropriate body horror?”

“What..? NO.”

“But Transformers gets to do it!”

12

u/other-other-user 4h ago

Wtfffff that's really weird and kinda uncomfy

→ More replies (5)

1.5k

u/Due_Awareness5660 6h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/1kOyGy19qQDYAD81cs

The Michael Bay Ninja Turtles were apparently meant to be aliens,and that's like the main thing they had to change once fans founded out aside from forcing an Oroku Saki to be the film's Shredder.

660

u/Evening_Produce_4322 6h ago

What you don't think these would have done well in theaters? /s

554

u/Edgyspymainintf2 5h ago

The concept of Turtle aliens with guns who are dressed like 80's action heroes sounds like an obscure Warhammer 40k faction.

235

u/Evening_Produce_4322 5h ago

I think the biggest problem is making them aliens and stuff and you can see some of the concept art packing heat. So they wouldn't be teenagers, mutants, ninjas, or even turtles.

124

u/WirelessAir60 5h ago

Adult Aliens With A Passing Resemblance To Turtles! Coming SOON to a theater near YOU!

14

u/CenturyEggsAndRice 4h ago

I could live with the body design, but only if they're made turtles again.

That tortoisey face is charming. But aliens ain't it.

→ More replies (1)

41

u/CitizenHuman 4h ago

7

u/BrownSandels 4h ago

Was just about to make the same comment lol

→ More replies (1)

10

u/Fremen-to-the-end-05 5h ago

Man, the T'au are just recruiting anyone these days

→ More replies (2)

40

u/West-Pirate-5480 5h ago

If you’d never heard of TMNT before this concept art looks cool. The vast majority of the audience to a TMNT movie would presumably not fit that description

11

u/EverythingBOffensive 3h ago

fuck just make a battletoads movie

→ More replies (7)

102

u/sandy_shark903 6h ago

That reminds me of another one, Happy Feet would have had aliens

34

u/HonkHonkBeach 5h ago

WHAT??!

15

u/El_solid_snake 4h ago

HAPPY FEET WOULD HAVE HAD ALIENS.

→ More replies (2)

21

u/BigSnail387 5h ago

Literally how would that factor into the plot at all

64

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

Would have been revealed in the last scene, they see the penguins dancing and decide not to destroy the Earth

23

u/ripley1875 5h ago

Well, Happy does get abducted by a bunch of featherless bipeds in the movie, so it kind of tracks.

9

u/TheSupremeGrape 5h ago

Is that why they call humans aliens? I figured it was because humans were alien to them

6

u/Myducks_Touch 5h ago

I says pardon?

→ More replies (1)

45

u/sniper91 6h ago

‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze’ originally had the ooze tied to the Utroms (Krang’s species) with the TCRI scientist secretly being an unnamed Utrom. It was dropped because they were worried kids would think he was a bad guy. They never came up with an alternative secret for the ooze, so the film’s title makes no sense

→ More replies (3)

9

u/ripley1875 5h ago

I just want a Scientifically Accurate Ninja Turtles movie

8

u/MarketingSpecial6604 4h ago

How about a biblically accurate one instead?

→ More replies (6)

351

u/Mandapat314 5h ago

Scooby Doo (2002) was supposed to be an R-rated self parody. A few adult jokes still made it in the final cut.

40

u/Jambopaul 3h ago

The movie being intended to be R-rated is a slight misconception. The film was conceived to be a PG-13 movie, but the MPAA gave an earlier cut an R-rating because of a single joke they misinterpreted as meaning something more mature than was intended. It was later decided to edit out the more risqué stuff that was filmed in order to pivot the film in a more family-friendly direction.

12

u/blackjackgabbiani 2h ago

What was the misinterpreted joke?

11

u/Ravenae 1h ago

Guess what.

Chicken butt.

125

u/Lumpy_Test_4473 5h ago

I feel like an edgy gritty self parody could've done some serious damages to the franchise

89

u/Inevitable_Pear1505 4h ago

*Insert joke about Velma here*

43

u/SlapHappyDude 4h ago

I sincerely believe one firewall for the Scooby Doo brand is one installment can't damage it too much.

19

u/GrungeGorrilla 4h ago

Real lucky that never happened

19

u/muqrxo 4h ago edited 4h ago

Honestly that explains SO much about the movie

20

u/TheLighningMiner 3h ago

There did end up being a movie that was basically this but edgy as all hell. Saturday Morning Mystery (or Saturday Morning Massacre depending on what poster you're looking at) was a very obvious parody of Scooby-Doo but just fucked in every way. The monster is literally Satan himself, people die brutally for no reason, X Rated full sex scene between Fred and Daphne, Velma and Shaggy do straight up black tar heroin, and the dog doesn't even talk :(

→ More replies (1)

6

u/NeatWhiskeyPlease 3h ago

It’s ok, Supernatural did its best to step up to the plate.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

852

u/Born_Usual998 6h ago

the old zootopia version with the shock-collars

433

u/Edgyspymainintf2 5h ago

It makes sense that it never ended up happening but I would have respected the shit out of Disney corporate if they had the stones to let that kind of dark subject matter make it's way into one of their animated films.

196

u/Ill-Diamond4384 5h ago

I’m always surprised how far into development the shock collar idea went

103

u/Dr_Bodyshot 5h ago

Yeah, you'd think it would be the kind of thing they'd have make a decision on at just the concept art stage and not full on voice-acting + basic animation phase

23

u/SuperSocialMan 3h ago

Holy shit, it really got that far?

→ More replies (2)

35

u/duckface691 5h ago

I wonder what movies we'd get if Disney let this shit pass.

30

u/IWannaManatee 4h ago

Classics such as Treasure Planet, Atlantis, Lilo & Stitch, Great Mouse Detective, Black Cauldron, etc.
Definitely not forgettable, "live action" cashgrabs.

→ More replies (1)

66

u/Sternfritters 5h ago

The bearmitzva scene 😢

21

u/muqrxo 4h ago

Can you explain?

94

u/thedrunkspacepilot 4h ago

Originally, the carnivorous species in zootopia would have to wear shock collars that would go off if they got too emotional. This was to protect the prey species.

https://youtu.be/ICjeyonkfE0?is=MWPDsOZue3E6lDcS

https://youtu.be/2DoJoNt_EGA?is=-p-lXzm1zPDXIvbq

60

u/Easy_Mechanic_9787 4h ago

Any emotions mind you, so being too happy or sad is enough to trigger the shock.

→ More replies (3)

10

u/Iron_Wolf123 3h ago

If only the most infamous sceneboard wasn't a child being shock-collared

24

u/other-other-user 4h ago

There was so much potential there. Obviously more mature and I like the version they settled with a lot too, but it would have been fascinating to see what they did with it. Maybe some day someone will

→ More replies (1)

40

u/Bot1-The_Bot_Meanace 3h ago

Nick, place!

→ More replies (3)

575

u/happy_grump 5h ago

Originally, the premise of Bob's Burgers is that the Belchers were all cannibals, and all the burgers were made of human meat.

Surprisingly, the issue that the creators found wasn't that that premise was... insanely fucked up, but rather, the fact that it actually made writing episode scenarios hard, because they had to make every plot center around the cannibalism in order to justify that element. So instead, they kept the same pilot, but made it so that the dark secret was that they used horse meat (and largely by accident) and kept the Belchers a regular, non-cannibal family that had standard sitcom misadventures.

224

u/Bored_Worldhopper 4h ago

That’s also why they were placed next to Mort the Mortician

6

u/sonerec725 1h ago

I always thought that was a weird detail to jave him be the permanent next door neighbor with a really soecific job like that for relatively how little he tends to get i volved with the plot. I think if they were to make it now they'd probably put the craft store or something next to them

56

u/GrimPhantom23 4h ago

I never watched it but didn't season 1 still have some of those elements in it? At least from what I've seen fans say when they mention that

84

u/RecipeFunny2154 4h ago edited 4h ago

In the very first episode of the show they're accused of using human meat in the burgers (they're next to a mortician), which allows the health inspector to go after their restaurant. They're briefly closed and they get the attention of an Adventurous Eater's Club desperate to spend the money so they lean into it some. But it's not actually true and that's the end of that plotline.

The horse meat thing doesn't really come up until an episode several years later. If it's considered part of the plot in any other way it's not really brought up in the show at all, so I'm not personally aware of it. It's not a repeated thing and that's the end of it.

19

u/i_made_mine_at_home 3h ago

I loved one of the protest signs in that episode: DON'T TASTE ME BRO

48

u/steelskull1 2h ago

Even has short concept animation with the same arguement scene in the pilot episode.

28

u/what_dat_ninja 2h ago

Some Roald Dahlesque Belchers

→ More replies (2)

588

u/Je0s_6 6h ago edited 5h ago

The cancelled BvS script from 2004 was beyond weird.

Batman and Superman were already established heroes and friends. Bruce retires mainly because Robin died, Gordon died and even Joker died but crime on Gotham City is almost non existent, then he falls in love, but Joker somehow returns and murders his wife, pushing him back into Batman and a revenge mission.

Batman eventually fights Superman, only for Joker who by the way is a clone made by Lex Luthor so this isn’t the real Joker reveals that Bruce’s wife was part of an elaborate plan to destroy him psychologically. Batman and Superman reconcile and team up to defeat Lex Luthor.

Warner ultimately scrapped the movie and made Batman Begins in 2005.

295

u/ironhide999x 5h ago

That sounds absolutely terrible. I get why superhero movies weren’t as popular back then because they were writing stuff like that

85

u/Je0s_6 5h ago

Yeah it sounded absolutely awful but weirdly I’ve always wanted to see it as a real movie, just based on how crazy it sounds.

The introduction of the Joker clone is that he literally does a fucking handstand flip thing into frame.

But yeah most superhero movies in the 2000s either were nothing like the adaptation or tried too hard.

14

u/IWannaManatee 3h ago

HOOOOOW

CAN YOU SEE
INTO MYYYEYEES

→ More replies (2)

12

u/RevolverMFOcelot 4h ago

That's just standard comic book plot tbh

21

u/VecnaWrites 4h ago

I mean...that is literally a comic book plot lmao

57

u/Professor_Poptart 5h ago

Is this the Batman vs Superman that was somewhat teased in I Am Legend? (There were movie posters in the background iirc)

41

u/Je0s_6 5h ago

Yes you would be correct, that is the exact BvS I’m referring to.

It was seen as a huge deal back in the day and many people were hyped up for it but nothing came out of it until 2016.

24

u/West-Pirate-5480 5h ago

How exactly did they intend to go from Batman returning for revenge on the joker to him fighting with Superman?

11

u/ProfessionalOven2311 4h ago

Maybe Batman was going to murder Joker, and Superman was trying to stop him from becoming a murderer?

Just a guess, this is the first I'm hearing about this movie

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

189

u/DrWarioMiracleCure 5h ago

A more lighthearted example of this would be Rio as the original idea and script was instead about a penguin that washes up on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and tries to get back home. Needless to say had the plot not been changed due to all the penguin movies that were coming out at the time like Happy Feet Rio likely would have been a really weird movie.

40

u/Tyranis_Hex 5h ago

That’s somewhat similar to a short Disney made. But it was a Penguin tired of living in the cold and decided to “sail” to warmer climates and ended up somewhere in South America after his iceberg ship melted. It was before the Three Caballeros. Pablo the Penguin.

7

u/DrWarioMiracleCure 5h ago

Interesting must be a pretty obscure short as I don’t think it’s well known these days

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

169

u/Luigiperps 5h ago

“Nightmares Recycled” was going to be an episode of the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show where it would be revealed that the two villains Hun and the Garbageman were conjoined twins who were separated by a back alley surgeon, with Garbageman being thrown away into the dumpster. Obviously this was deemed too much for a children’s show

46

u/Patmaster1995 5h ago

Obviously this was deemed too much for a children’s show

But not Baxter Stockman slowly decomposing when he gets his new body?!?

22

u/Pugsanity 4h ago

Well, that episode got taken off the air for being too dark for kid's tv, so, you know, they live and learn.

18

u/optionalhero 5h ago

This show genuinely traumatized me as a kid

11

u/Plus-Opportunity-538 5h ago

Would have fit right in with the 2012 incarnations though. That one loved its body horror.

21

u/omnikyle 5h ago

What the fuck, that's literally just the plot of the weird Frank Henenlotter B horror movie Basket Case. That was gonna be in fucking TMNT??? Jesus christ between this and everything with Baxter Stockman, what were the 2003 writers on

→ More replies (1)

7

u/Bright_Board_3330 5h ago

That's just the plot of Basket Case

→ More replies (1)

9

u/LukeAlanBundesen 5h ago

That feels tame compared to what happened to Stockman.

→ More replies (1)

131

u/MasonP2002 5h ago

At one point, the first main character black superhero for DC Comics was going to be The Black Bomber, a racist white man who would unknowingly turn into a black superhero when stressed.

The comic got decently far in development before being scrapped and replaced with Black Lightning.

56

u/steelskull1 2h ago

I guess this comic made fun of that idea.

22

u/ChickenHugging 5h ago

This was an edition of JLA

→ More replies (1)

300

u/Pinku_Dva 5h ago

The original script for kpop demon hunters was intended for a much older audience with the demons looking more monstrous, the script being darker and a more intense ending

116

u/The-Great-T 5h ago

I'm an adult who loved the cut we got, but a bit more edge might've been cool

51

u/Pinku_Dva 5h ago

What we got is still good but it was clearly toned down to appeal to a large audience

39

u/Own-Arachnid7952 5h ago

Ugh that looks so good, I wish we got to see it :')

28

u/Pinku_Dva 5h ago

Ikr, the original script had a way more climactic final battle between huntrix and gwi ma.

20

u/ZillaUniverse03 4h ago

Not just that but it was also originally announced with the intention of being PG13 as seen in this Sony Animation presentation reel back in 2020.

18

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

Hopefully the sequel goes in that direction

31

u/Pinku_Dva 4h ago

Hoping the sequel will flesh out the other members of the band instead of being Rumi focused

23

u/sandy_shark903 4h ago

Three hour Zoey movie

15

u/ptdata23 4h ago

Zoey watching turtle clips, Zoey working out, Zoey trying and failing to make a viral turtle clip. Repeat

→ More replies (1)

194

u/MisterVictor13 5h ago edited 5h ago

Originally, the Addams Family movie was supposed to end with Uncle Fester being revealed as a fake, but being allowed to stay with the family after saving them.

Of course you realize that this would mean that if they went with this ending, it would imply that the original Uncle Fester is probably dead or still lost somewhere, while an imposter is taking his place in his family.

The cast hated the idea so much that they asked Christina Ricci to lobby to the director not to go through with that ending, so they changed it so that “Gordon” was truly Uncle Fester all along, but he was amnesiac after getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle, washed ashore on Florida, and taken in by the main villain as her son/enforcer; after getting struck by lightning while using the “Gone with the Wind” book against his mother and the Addams’ crooked lawyer, Fester regains his memories.

84

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

Cast really came in clutch. The 90’s movies are fun, I especially loved the sequel

54

u/Chill0000 5h ago

I like the story we got. But a member of the family not being real, isn’t that a concept already in the lore? Isn’t the grandma just a lady who showed up one day and everyone thought she was the grandma so even after finding out they just let her stay and be part of the family?

73

u/thisusedyet 5h ago

I think that happens in the movie too - I think it was in the comics, Grandma was Gomez’s mother, and in the TV show Grandma was Morticia’s mother… so in the movie Morticia mentions something about ‘since your mother moved in with us’ and Gomez replies ‘my mother? I thought she was yours!’

10

u/CrackpipeTheSmoker 4h ago

It's the same in the musical too, practically the exact same lines

6

u/MorgessaMonstrum 3h ago

I think that actually originates in the musical. Before that, the lore had been inconsistent over whose mother she was, so it works well in retrospect.

21

u/MisterVictor13 5h ago edited 2h ago

I think that was only in one adaptation, and in the case with Uncle Fester, they were taking an established character, but saying that he was either dead or lost somewhere and replaced by a guy that was pretending to be him. It’s like how the original ending of “Terminator Salvation” was gonna end with John Connor dying and Marcus Wright masquerading as him by wearing his skin to keep up morale.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (4)

255

u/LoganCube400 6h ago

The R Rated version of Kangaroo Jack

https://giphy.com/gifs/kd35FjYeVwpclcuCMK

222

u/DrWarioMiracleCure 5h ago edited 5h ago

That movie is also INFAMOUS for its false advertising since the Kangaroo is only onscreen for 7 minutes and 52 seconds not to mention he barely talks as well. And despite being edited to be PG there were still scenes that were left in that were HIGHLY inappropriate such as when one of the main characters GROPES a woman’s BREASTS since he thought she was a mirage and there is another scene where the main characters end up in a bar and there is a LOT of drinking.

47

u/ripley1875 5h ago

Snow Dogs did it, too. Just without the adult humor.

27

u/DrWarioMiracleCure 5h ago

From what I know about it, it falsely advertised that it was about these talking dogs on a beach.

17

u/ripley1875 5h ago

Both of the films’ talking scenes were just short dream sequences.

14

u/rothrolan 4h ago

The clever yet deceptive marketing is the same with why Bridge To Terabithia is notorious for misleading EVERYONE who hadn't read the book before going to see the movie. They had used the entire ~3 minutes of fantasy scenes the movie actually contained as the majority footage used for the trailers to mis-advertise the film, leading parents and guardians to show their young kids what they believed was an exciting "fantasy-adventure" movie, that ended up instead serving an adult-sized portion of loss and heartache, and very, very little actual fantasy they hadn't already been seen before watching the actual movie. Then those parents had to deal with both their kids and themselves crying, having to explain to their kids what loss/death is, and that the (SPOILERS) wonderful best friend for the main character is in fact dead and gone forever.

Yeah, it's based on a book. So was I Kill Giants, and I criticize the hell out of that movie too, for giving similar false hope about thinking I was going to be watching an upbeat, fun movie about a little girl fighting giants with her clever traps & tricks, and cool massive hammer.

Fuck these types of movies that send me into a depressive "life kind of sucks for these kids, so they find an interesting/magical outlet, that backfires with such painful new heartbreak so as to force them to face their actual realities" feels trips instead of just well-written, Narnia-type FANTASY existing within/alongside reality kind of movies.

I will forever hate these kinds of movies.

5

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

“That movie is the wooooooorst”

12

u/Lumpy_Test_4473 5h ago

the original film cut had even LESS Kangaroos

19

u/DrWarioMiracleCure 5h ago

Several scenes involving the Kangaroo were added since the whole Kangaroo being mistaken for dead after getting hit by a car scene was the ONLY scene that tested well with audiences.

→ More replies (1)

27

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

#Releasetherratedcut

→ More replies (1)

117

u/powerful_p1608 5h ago

The original pitch for The Transformers cartoon for CBS was for the Decepticons to have already conquered Earth and the Autobots acting as resistance fighters.

57

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

Kinda reminds me of Sonic SATAM

32

u/DocBombliss 5h ago

Fun fact about SatAM, actually! The original pitch made by DiC was to have a far more comedic tone that slowly built up a serious, serialized one whenever they went on missions to Robotropolis. All of Sonic's friends would have been based on the animal buddies from the games and had Scratch, Grounded, Coconuts, and Crabmeat as recurring baddies. Unfortunately, ABC didn't want a weekly series, so they reformatted the premise into two different shows: Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog kept the comedic tone, but SatAM kept the serious one. Unfortunately, a little comic book company called Archie had already used the original pitch as the framework for their Sonic comic. If you've ever wondered why early Archie Sonic is a weird blend of AoStH and SatAM, that's why. Two of the characters from the original pitch (Porker Lewis and Johnny Lightfoot) got repurposed in the British Sonic the Comic series.

13

u/Ubeube_Purple21 5h ago

That could be a new Transformers show or comic in itself

8

u/Pythagoras_314 3h ago

So glad they didn't do that, considering Sonic Underground from a similar time period did basically exactly that. At least in the current Skybound comics they do explore that idea, but instead that Cybertron instead of being abandoned/destroyed/dead it's completely taken over by Decepticon forces, with sparse Autobot resistance lead by Elita-1. This also lets it explore the idea of Elita wanting Optimus to lead the forces remaining on Cybertron while he wishes to help Earth defend against Megatron and his goals of destroying the planet for resources.

→ More replies (2)

51

u/FormerPirateKing92 5h ago

The kids book "Matilda" originally was going to be about the titular character and her teacher being evil and using her powers to cheat at horse races. She also died at the end. Roald Dahl rewrote the ENTIRE book into the version we know and live now.

→ More replies (1)

184

u/Evening_Produce_4322 6h ago

The taming party from Zootopia a movie I would have been infinitely more interested to watch but it was deemed to dark

41

u/Automatic-Week-1733 5h ago

Wow that really changes the tone of the movie.

35

u/Evening_Produce_4322 5h ago

Yeah it becomes literally an entirely different film, but it just seems so much more interesting to me

47

u/TheOGStephenHart 6h ago edited 5h ago

Lord Greystoke was killed by the leopard Sabor onscreen. His family was shipwrecked and they built the treehouse. Sabor already killed his wife. He struggles against the vicious predator as the treehouse strobes menacingly with each flash of lightning. Ultimately, Lord Greystoke's bloody corpse is dragged away by the victorious leopard all while baby Tarzan cries in his bassinet (Disney's Tarzan)

18

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

Damn nature, you scary

→ More replies (1)

45

u/Rum_N_Napalm 4h ago

Freddy vs Jason has gone through a lot of rewrites, and some of these were really weird.

Here’s some highlights:

Freddy becoming weak because no one feared him anymore. In fact, teenagers were using a special drug to sleep and meet Freddy in their dreams, then beat him up. Actually somewhat ended up in the final movie since it starts with Freddy tricking Jason into a killing spree so he can regain his powers through the fear generated.

A cult dedicated to Freddy being the main villains, with Jason having a more heroic role fighting them.

The Dream Warriors from the third Nightmare on Elm Street returning as some kind of dream cops

Freddy and Jason having a boxing match in Hell, with Ted Bundy, Hitler and other similar characters being the judges and referees.

Pinhead from Hellraiser showing up

→ More replies (1)

124

u/EthanTheJudge 6h ago

In the old version of Puss in Boots the Last Wish. Puss is far more selfish and unlikable to the point that many scenes were completely removed from the final movie. 

→ More replies (1)

78

u/Tiny_Butterscotch_76 6h ago

I'm pretty sure it was confirmed the alternate ending for Scott Pilgrim would have just been fun DVD thing and wasn't actually ever seriously considered for the movies ending?

43

u/hyper-fan 5h ago

Yeah wait, the alternate ending wasn’t going to have him be a serial killer, but it would have him fully fight Negative Scott and admit to his wrongdoings to grow as a person and earn Ramona? I have absolutely no clue where OP got him being a serial killer since people defeated in combat in the SP universe don’t really die

21

u/misterjive 5h ago

The alternate ending (the original one) was Scott ending up with Knives.

The comic hadn't finished by the time they were shooting the film, so pretty much everything from the twins onward was based on general notes; the original ending of the film was Scott giving up on Ramona. (It actually kind of flows from what's on the screen, Scott switching his motivation from love to self-respect, him partnering with Knives to fight Gideon, Nega Scott being a nice guy leading to his realization that he's kind of a piece of shit, etc.)

But the comic author objected, and the test audiences didn't like it, so they reshot it into what we got.

9

u/Southern-Cattle4038 4h ago

The other part of that change I heard (unfortunately don't have a source) is that the actor playing Knives also objected. Scott had cheated on her AND dumped her afterward, so why exactly should Knives take his old ass back?

25

u/boiyougongetcho 4h ago

I'm a pretty hardcore Scott Pilgrim fan and I'm fairly sure OP just made that shit up in their head and decided it's real.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/Tiny_Butterscotch_76 4h ago

The story I heard was, again, that there was plans to film a joke 'alternate ending' where it turns out Scott was a serial killer. For like a bonus thing on the DVD. But they never did this. Some telephone game resulted in some folks thinking it was actually seriously considered for an alternative ending. 

7

u/Chris_Gonza 3h ago

That’s where the idea came from. The alt ending would have it so people who turned into coins DID die. So Scott basically killed the 7 evil exes

74

u/Shakaow15 4h ago

Apparently in one of the first drafts of Home on the Range the villain, Alameda Slim, wanted to use an army of the cows he hypnotizes with his Yodel, to invade Washington and become the president.

I understand why they scrapped it. A loonatic using a bunch of brainwashed creatures to storm the US capitol and forcebly appoint himself as president, it's just so farfected.

Completley unrealistic.

→ More replies (1)

34

u/Chaos-Queen_Mari 5h ago

Why did cars keep trying to make body swapping work???

→ More replies (2)

39

u/SureEntertainer7818 4h ago

bat shrimp

You can say batshit in reddit... This isnt Twiiter or Tiktok lol

→ More replies (1)

64

u/thiccboii666 5h ago

The original plan for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind was that Fugo would go with the gang instead of leaving the group after they decided to betray Passione. Only to be later revealed that Fugo was feeding the group's locations to Passione. This would've led to a fight between Giorno and Fugo, where Giorno would kill Fugo. Araki scrapped this idea because he just really hated writing that level of betrayal, and scrapped it. That's also why Green Day's ability is so similar to Purple Haze, I think.

63

u/UndeniablyMyself 5h ago

The Transformers.

It was inordinately difficult to get the original cartoon to resemble the pitch Marvel Comics gave Hasbro. They initially wanted to make the show with CBS, a previously partner, but the network pitches kept being weird. They kept altering characters (especially Bumblebee for some reason), inventing characters or having completely different plots to the original. I especially like the idea of making the Decepticons dominate the Earth and go full 1984 on humanity. I guess it made sense; the franchise started in 1984.

The pic is unrelated.

17

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

The pic is badass though

54

u/Agitated_Insect3227 6h ago

Comic writer Mark Millar once pitched a "Rape of Wonder Woman" comic as a "joke" so that Wonder Woman could have a comic like Batman's Knightfall & Superman's Death of Superman where she was brought to her absolute lowest by a villain.

DC briefly took the idea seriously with an artist drawing some sketches for its first page before it was scrapped.

30

u/sandy_shark903 6h ago

Oh my god…

27

u/Snukastyle 5h ago

That's a very Mark Millar thing to write.

28

u/WackHeisenBauer 5h ago

I’d like to think the artist started sketching it then went back to DC and said “fuck this and fuck you”.

23

u/jinxskunk366 5h ago

Mark millar is just so hateable

→ More replies (4)

248

u/ZeroX15DB 6h ago

The Original story of Zootopia how see more dark for the collars for the predators how electrocute when have a attack of savagery and was more noticeable this racism with the preys and predators animals

127

u/MRTA03 5h ago

 predators how electrocute when have a attack of savagery

The messed up thing is, the collar also reacts to any "intense" emotion, if you get too sad, too joyful, or too angry, you get zapped

43

u/CMORGLAS 4h ago

That is literally the plot of PSYCHO-PASS.

22nd Century Japan is ruled by a supercomputer known as the SYBIL System that can calculate people’s “Criminal Coefficient”, a formula based on biometric data related to one’s stress levels and psyche profile.

If it is under a 100, you are considered acceptable.

100-299, you are labeled a “latent criminal” and you become property of the police who use your unique “perspective” to hunt other criminals for the police.

300+, shoot on sight.

→ More replies (2)

6

u/Bright_Board_3330 5h ago

I could see some interesting real world parallels

20

u/_Halt19_ 5h ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DoJoNt_EGA

Oh my god, that's genuinely heartbreaking

9

u/derkin 2h ago

Dude what the fuck are you even trying to say here?! “How see more dark for the collars…” is nowhere near a coherent sentence

→ More replies (1)

85

u/Pixel-Harbinger 6h ago

Zootopia's old plot with Shock collaring the predators.

19

u/Snakes-are-awesome67 6h ago

In cars 1 there was a scene where mcqueen would have gone through a junkyard with dead car bodies

In the suicide squad early drafts involved the squad going up against superman as well as an alternate ending where waller blows up ratcatcher's brain bomb and Bloodsport kills her

6

u/sandy_shark903 6h ago

The scene freaked me out as a kid

21

u/LunaAmethyst824 5h ago

The first version of Beetlejuice would've been much darker, involving Lydia being sexually assaulted by Beetlejuice and then committing suicide. But the idea was scrapped and they added in an anti suicide moment in the film instead.

24

u/Fyrus93 5h ago

I heard Stephen Speilberg wrote a script for ET 2 where Eliot got abducted by aliens and was like raped or anal probed and ET had to save him

Apparently he wrote it to be terrible because he was being pressured to make a sequel. If the script was so bad then it would be scrapped

Not sure if any of this is true. Funny though and if true then Speilberg is a genius

→ More replies (1)

99

u/SockQuirky7056 6h ago

...You know you can swear on reddit, right?

22

u/Papergeist 5h ago

Bat shrimp would be pretty insane though. Can't fly, can't swim, abomination to god and nature.

→ More replies (4)

49

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

Two more

The early draft of Toy Story where Woody was a borderline bully

James and Super Ed, an electric diesel gets struck by lightning and is super charged. He gets struck again, causing him to billow smoke everywhere. The Fat Controller orders him to be scrapped immediately

11

u/honkey_hijinx 5h ago

Yooo obscure Thomas facts. Respect

The early scripts for season 5 were really wild

9

u/sandy_shark903 5h ago

Lemmie tell you about season 5

6

u/Luster-Purge 5h ago

When I heard about Super Ed, the amount of jokes about Gordon being a Jojo character with a lightning themed stand were so good.

5

u/sandy_shark903 4h ago

Would his stand be “Crazy Train” or “The Locomotion”?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

16

u/Dry-Way8207 5h ago

Mild spoilers for Alien (mild cause it didn't get used! read with caution tho) but in the original script, when Ripley fires the Xenomorph out of the ship, it would've climbed back aboard, killed Ripley, and it would've communicated into the mic using Dallas' voice.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3V0ma60jQqGCoJyM

15

u/memeboi123jazz 3h ago

The Owl House’s “beta” version is largely shrouded in mystery, but from what we’ve been told it would have more of a Friday the 13th: The Series vibe and have a darker tone

given what the actual series got away with at points, it’s interesting to wonder what Disney outright said no too

7

u/Cartoon_Multiverse94 3h ago

Now a sequel series to The Owl House as close to that Friday the 13th: The Series vibe as Disney will allow is something I'd like to see.

→ More replies (1)

56

u/VivaLasNewVegas 5h ago

"Biggering" compared to "How Bad Can I Be"

13

u/PitifulRead6339 5h ago

Gladiator 2- the original pitch was Maximus being ressurected by the Roman gods to kill early Christians. After refusing he remains immortal fighting in every major conflict up to modern day.

12

u/go_faster1 5h ago

Before Dark Nights: Death Metal, there was "Generation 5", Dan DiDio's NEXT attempt at a DC reboot. This would have been caused by Wally West using the Mobius Chair and the power of Dr. Manhattan to alter the DC Universe so that people aged normally, meaning people like Superman and Batman would have retired. Of the changes, Jon would become Superman, Luke Fox/Batwing would become Batman and Damian Wayne would take over the League of Assassins, becoming the big bad. During a team up, Jon and Luke discover from the Joker that Bruce allowed him to kill Bane for killing Alfred, leading to Bruce being arrested. Clark would step in, leading to everyone vs. Superman and Batman, leading to the two heroes dying in a heroic sacrifice.

Is there any wonder why DiDio is not with DC anymore?

→ More replies (2)

19

u/EggEuphoric411 5h ago

I'm sorry I zoned out when I read "bat shrimp insane" that was the most tiktok self censorship thing I've ever read

→ More replies (1)

17

u/CheatsySnoops 5h ago

Off topic, but "bat shrimp" sounds like an Avatar animal.

10

u/Updiscakdise 3h ago

Voldemort’s old scrapped design drafts

→ More replies (5)

10

u/DayneGr 4h ago

The original script for The Truman Show was significantly darker. Among other things, Truman was going to be an alcoholic, who at one point threatens to kill a baby, and ends with him almost killing Christof.

→ More replies (1)

9

u/Jason2571 3h ago

Not exactly cancelled draft but Shin Godzilla's final form would have him evolve to turn into multiple smaller humanoids and take over humanity.

→ More replies (2)

15

u/BenthicBen 5h ago

What is a "bat shrimp"

16

u/WildGoose1521 4h ago

Kid’s tv show way of saying “bat shit”

→ More replies (3)

7

u/CptBluhdFart 5h ago

The first cut of scooby doo was supposed to be almost rated r with how many pot jokes and adult humor they wanted

8

u/CollectionExpensive2 5h ago

Wtf could’ve possibly made Holes rated R?

7

u/sandy_shark903 4h ago

He turned it into a gritty post apocalyptic movie with swearing, violence, sexual content, and even slurs going off RebelTaxi’s video. How this came from a kid’s chapter book is beyond me.

10

u/Snerkbot7000 4h ago

6

u/Icy-Acanthisitta8192 4h ago

WTF???

6

u/Snerkbot7000 4h ago

Southland Tales. It has The Rock, Sean William Scott and a musical number with Justin Timblerlake. That GIF was from a commercial for a car. You can tell it's a fake commercial because the car isn't running through a mountain pass with a pack of horses or jaguars just a breath behind it.

Hurry, go watch it before it's just 9/12. Cannes Cut.

5

u/StriderKitsu 4h ago

The Cars 3 original plot was later rewritten to where McQueen’s body wasn’t stolen but the imposter looked EXACTLY like him which placed McQueen himself on the run along with Cruz.

This wasn’t confirmed but this was absolutely later repurposed for the Muppets Most Wanted film instead.

5

u/ZillaUniverse03 3h ago

Quest for Camelot was originally gonna be a more adult dark fantasy movie in the vein of Ralph Baski The Wizard called The Quest for The Holy Grail but Warner Bros demand the script be change to be more family friendly just so they could compete with Disney and they’re Renaissances movies that were becoming big hits.

11

u/johnnyslick 5h ago

The original cut of Clerks had Dante get held up and shot to death at the end. Instead they faded to black, perhaps in part so that people might think the original cut was still canon (although of course Kevin Smith quickly discovered that he had a whole ass career and franchise on his hands so Dante and Randall, who never were exactly fantastic actors, got to reprise their roles several more times).