‘Pretty Woman’ was Originally A Dark Tale about Drug Abuse

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Pretty Woman, the “Today” show got together the director Garry Marshall along with the film’s cast including Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Laura San Giacomo and Hector Elizondo to discuss the film beginning with news it originally wasn’t even a comedy. Titled 3,000, based on the amount of money Roberts’ character pulled in each day as a prostitute, the original script was a “dark, cautionary tale about drug abuse”. Roberts reveals at the end of the original version, Gere’s character throws Roberts out of the car, throws the money on top of her and drives away as the credits begin to roll.

That, of course, was before the film was sold to Disney, at which point Roberts no longer had the lead role and, remember, at the time no one even knew who Julia Roberts even was. She would later get the gig, obviously, and screen tested with Charles Grodin for the role Gere would eventually play as Gere originally passed on the part several times saying, “The joke was it was a suit, you could put a suit on a goat and put it out there, and it would work.” He eventually tells of his first meeting with Roberts and a Post-It note she wrote that read, “Please say yes.”

They go on to discuss their favorite scenes while San Giacomo and Elizondo don’t exactly say all that much. I’m not even sure San Giacomo says anything, at least not in the following clip, though there is promise of more in the future. I’ll let you find that on your own, but for now here is this clip.

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