Pretty Woman turns 25 years old this week. Yep, we can't believe the iconic romantic comedy starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts is a quarter of a century old - and we're finding it even harder to believe that the original film was supposed to be "dark and gritty" - not the fairytale storyline we know and love today.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Pretty Woman's screenwriter J.F. Lawton revealed that when he first wrote the film, it was called 3,000, was inspired by Wall Street, and was not as lighthearted and romantic as you'd have thought.
Centering around "a girl who wanted to change her life, and did" in the first version, Vivian and Edward don't even get together in the more sombre (but probably realistic) ending of the film.
Instead, it ends with Vivian and her best friend Kit on a bus bound for Disneyland, funded by Vivian's time with Edward. The famous scenes - the dramatic shopping trip and the opera visit - were there - but that's about it.
"Wall Street had either come out or was coming out, I had heard about it and the whole issue about the financiers who were destroying companies. I kind of thought about the idea that one of these people would met somebody who was affected by what they were doing,” he said.
But then, the gritty film took a different turn when Disney decided to make it - and other writers were brought on to give the film the more light-hearted tone they wanted.
The main reason? Because Richard Gere and Julia Roberts were being courted for the role, and had such amazing chemistry, a sad ending just wouldn't have worked.
“They had auditioned Al Pacino, they had auditioned Michelle Pfeiffer, and it would definitely have been a different movie if had it been Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer,” Lawton revealed.
“It might have been closer to the original script and maybe not have had a happy ending. But the chemistry between Julia and Gere, it is palpable on the screen, it was palpable in auditions. You can’t really see how it could end any other way, because they just light up with each other.”
So there we have it - one of our favourite movies of ALL TIME could have been totally different. In the words of Julia Roberts, we think it would have been a BIG MISTAKE, if they'd have gone for the original - and Lawton agrees. He said he was "thrilled" with the rewrite.