At the beginning of January, The Playlist posted an interview with Birdman director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu discussing the film as well as mentioning a different ending for the film. He told the site, “[I]t had a different ending but in the middle of shooting, I knew it was a piece of shit. I felt it and the film began to breathe by itself, and the characters began to grow. I went in and wrote it with Alexander [Dinelaris] and Nico [Giacobone], and I am so happy that I changed it. Now I feel very good about the ending. It feels very fair.”
[amz asin=”B00RO49JEI” size=”small”]When asked what it was, Inarritu said, “I will never tell you. It would be so embarrassing. It was bad.” Well, it sounds like Dinelaris has a little bit of a different memory of why the ending didn’t make it in the movie and he isn’t afraid to let us know what it was, discussing the film with Jeff Goldsmith on his podcast (via The Film Stage).
Here’s how he tells the story:
“So we had one other ending that was satirical. The other ending was that he shoots himself on the stage. The camera comes around to the audience and their standing ovation — all the way around, like Chivo [Emmanuel Lubezki] and Alejandro did the whole time — and the segue was back on to the stage and on the stage was like James Lipton or Charlie Rose and Michael [Keaton] was sitting across from him and he’s sort of reading the review. He’s saying, ‘Oh my God, you got this tremendous review’ and Michael is like, ‘Yeah.’
“[T]hen the camera prowled like it did the whole film, went back stage through the halls we’ve seen the whole time and we’d get to the dressing room where literally Johnny Depp would be sitting looking in the mirror and putting on his Riggan Thomson wig and then the poster of Pirates of the Caribbean 5 would be in the back. In Jack Sparrow’s voice [it would say], ‘What the fuck are we doing here, mate?’ It was going to be the satire of the endless loop of that… We couldn’t get Johnny Depp or even the poster.”
It’s an interesting idea, though I do think they were right to excise it. I’m also a bit surprised it was Johnny Depp they pictured in that instance as I always perceived the character to be a bit closer to Robert Downey Jr., or, of course, Keaton himself. Either way, I don’t think it’s the least bit surprising they weren’t able to get Depp or even allowed to use a fake Pirates poster. As far as that goes, I’m surprised they were allowed to get the Spider-Man and Transformer in the film.
Birdman hits DVD and Blu-ray on February 17 and is available on digital HD now.
