If you haven’t seen the 1995 David Fincher thriller Seven (a.k.a. Se7en), you’ve got two options right now: Either go check that out real quick and pick up where you left off here afterward, or keep reading and accept the fact that we’re about to spoil the hell out of the ending for you right now.
To quickly summarize, the film follows homicide detectives David Mills (Brad Pitt) and William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) as they try to track down a serial killer obsessed with the seven deadly sins. This culminates in the murderer, John Doe (played by Kevin Spacey), decapitating Mills’s wife and having the head delivered to him in a box.
You can see how that plays out in the video below.
30 Years Ago, ‘Seven’ Almost Ended With Brad Pitt’s Character Being Murdered
Believe it or not, a number of people involved with Seven’s production objected to the legendary head-in-the-box finale. As a matter of fact, it was Pitt’s insistence that they keep it in the movie that finally convinced the studio to give it the green light. He was also adamant about Mills killing Spacey’s character. Prior to that, executives suggested that they go with a dog’s head instead of Mills’s wife’s.
But the wife getting beheaded was rejected before Fincher was even approached to direct. The job was originally offered to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation director Jeremiah S. Chechik, who didn’t think very highly of the box idea. Chechik demanded a rewrite, and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker came up with something completely different. The result was an ending that was somehow way darker than the one we ended up getting.
In that 1992 draft, it’s revealed that Doe was abused by a priest as a child at a since-abandoned church. Doe kidnaps Mills and takes him there at the end, where he carves a cross into Mills’s chest and shoots him to death. Somerset then tortures Doe in a fit of rage, firing shots into each of Doe’s limbs before overturning a rack of candles onto him and burning him alive.
The scene concludes with Somerset weeping as he carries Mills’s body out of the church.
The post ‘Seven’ Almost Had an Even Darker Ending Than the Head in the Box appeared first on VICE.
