Julia Roberts Revealed The Original ‘Pretty Woman’ Ending & Shit It’s Dark

Iconic nineties flick Pretty Woman is peppered with feel good moments from the “big mistake, HUGE” triumph to the fact that the powerful business man ultimately ends up with the lower-class gal. But according to lead star Julia Roberts, an alternate version of the film included a much darker conclusion to the iconic tale.

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In an interview with Variety for their Actors on Actors special, Roberts and Patricia Arquette mused on the darkness of the original screenplay, once titled 3000, compared to the light-hearted rom-com it went on to become.

“That movie was really dark and the ending was really heavy,” said Arquette, who almost played call girl Vivian Ward. “It really read like a dark gritty art movie.”

Roberts agreed, adding that original script ended with Richard Gere’s character kicking her out and dumping a pile of money on her.

“[Gere’s character] threw the money on top of her, as memory serves, and just drove away leaving her in some dirty alley,” she said.

Roberts said she, “had no business being in a movie like that.”

But just days after getting the part, the movie company folded, leaving the young actress without a job, she told Arquette.

“There was one producer that stayed with the script and then it went to Disney. And I went, went to Disney? Are they gonna animate it? How does this become a Disney movie?’”

With Gary Marshal now top dog, Roberts said the director agreed to meet with her to cast her in the redeveloped script.  

“I think because he’s a great human being, he met with me because I had once had the job and he felt it would only be fair to at least meet me since I had this job for three days and then lost it,” she said.

“And they changed the whole thing it and really became more something that’s in my wheelhouse than what it originally was,” the actress continued.

As a romantic Scorpio, I’m bloody stoked that they ended up going down the rom-com route.

now *that’s* an ending

Pretty Woman is now streaming on Stan if you wanna relive the glory of the iconic flick.

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