Aug 09 2009
The Myth of the Happy ending and its box office potential
Hollywood studios have tendency to listen a little too closely when the focus group cards come back during testing. One good example is people’s complaints about not having a happy ending. As though an unemployed person who is walking around the mall in the middle of the afternoon, and gets asked to watch a movie should have some kind of control over our collective cultural zeitgeist.
The following are examples of financially successful classics that had endings that fit the films, rather than tacked-on test audience appeasements serving as the last twenty minutes.
SEVEN - Bad guy wins. Convinces cop Brad Pitt through his own rage to murder him, and thus proves his own theories about human depravity. Pitt led away in handcuffs.
Results - Considered by many to be one of the best serial killer movies ever made.
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - Tom Hanks and a squad of soldiers ALL die while attempting to pull one individual out of the European theater of combat.
Results - Best Director for Steven Spielberg for a film that is widely considered the most realistic depiction of D-Day ( Even by the men who fought there)
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS - Though Agent Clarice Starling susses out and kills the heinous serial killer Buffulo Bill in the climax, Brilliant, cannabalistic serial killer Hannibal Lector escapes, fully intending to kill and eat his former jailer.
Results - Oscars in all the major categories, three sequels and widely considered the only horror-themed film to win best picture.
STAR TREK: THE WRATH OF KHAN - Spock dies saving the Enterprise, causing James T Kirk to come to grips with his own mortality.
Results - Approaching 11 films in the series and WOK is still considered the best one.
THE TERMINATOR - Though Sarah Connor manages to kill the relentless Terminator, her short-lived love dies and she must go into hiding from the coming nuclear war.
Results - 3 sequels, a TV series and widely considered to best, most sub-texturally subtle low budget action film ever made.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - Though all ours heroes live, they are soundly beaten, Han Solo is carted away in carbonite. Luke learns the evil Lord Vader is in fact his own father.
Results - Box office up the yin-yang, and considered by fans to be the best of the six Star Wars movies.
TAXI DRIVER - Loner cabbie Travis Bickle goes on a bloody killing spree in a brothel, then rejects the attentions of the woman who sorta drove him to it.
Results - A classic! The best urban dystopian film ever made.
CASABLANCA - Bogey has Bergman mooning over him again, but forces her to get on a plain, thus ending their chances to ever be a couple again.
Results - Classic. I could write for hours on this one alone.
DONNIE DARKO - Donnie chooses to save his girl and end a temporal causality loop by allowing himself to die.
Results - Astoundingly good film. One of the few that has a profound effect on people rather just having think about the popcorn after-taste afterwards. Smash hit in Britain, Americans kinda missed it.
INFERNAL AFFAIRS - Inspector Lau, the mob’s insider in the Hong Kong PD, is caught, but before Insp Leung can turn him in, leung gets his brains blown out.
Results - One of the best cop dramas ever made. Two sequels. Remade as the silly The Departed by Martin Scorcese.
BEOWULF - Beowulf dies battling his dragon son, B’s trusted right hand man is crowned king, and offered the same temptation as the two previous kings by the dragon’s water demon mother - One he’s likely to give in to.
Results - A visually dynamic telling of the ancient tale, one that involves as much character as ass-kicking.
BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID - Butch and Sundance are gunned down by the entire Bolian army.
Results - Multiple Oscars.
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST - Rowdy Jack Nicholson is labotomized, then euthennized by his friend.
Results - All the major Oscars.
And those are just the “classics”, there are a multitude of great films that do not ascribe to some half-witted, happy ending Hollywood formula. If you can think of others, add them to the list.
