WARNING!! This article contains SPOILERS for the movie “Wanted”!!
Borys Kit at The Risky Biz Blog wrote in a recent posting that what you see at the end of Universal’s “Wanted” is not the ending that was in the intitial “final” cut.
“Wanted” is a significant departure from its source material; the villains in the original comic-books were running the show a lot more than they did in the film.
The ending thats being seen has Sloan (Morgan Freeman) turning up to Wesley’s office, standing on the X, with a bullet from Wesley, who’s in his house (as he was at the beginning of the movie), whizzing by Wesley’s ex-girlfriend and ex-boss.
It is kind of a nice, low-key way to exit the story, referring back to what happened at the beginning of the film but it is actually a reshoot. In the original ending, Wesley (James McAvoy) ends up in the room with the loom, weaving and threading, and then gets into a protracted shoot-out with Sloan. It was your typical Hollywood ending, as bullets shred everything to pieces and Wesley comes out on top.
When it screened back in February, higher-ups didn’t like it because it was another shootout ending. No one, it seemed, did. Too boring. Too been there, shot that. So everyone — the director, writers, the producers, the execs, the comic creators — got together and came up with the ending that played on the screen.
In other words, a studio actually opted to scrap the conventional ending for the smarter and fresher one, an ending that cost a lot less but offered a lot more. Judging by the $51 million opening, maybe they should do it more often.
Sources:
The Risky Biz Blog
IMDB
0 replies on “"Wanted's" Ending Swap”
I think the ending even lends a little insight to how far off his original mission Sloan had gone.
That he’d think that Wesley would go back to his old life after turning his back on the “opportunity” he’d been given by the Fraternity (not to mention the training) speaks volumes.
I would have been miffed that they’d do that to his character, but that it turned out to be a head-fake and a trap made it all the more delicious.
I, for one, hope that smart choices like this one become not only a trend, but an expectation.