If anyone were to mention Julia Roberts in any conversation ever, it’s only natural for us to be reminded of the cult classic Pretty Woman. The movie is etched in our memories with its absolutely magical scenes and that climax.
But little did we know that our favourite end to a movie was not what the writer had imagined initially. How do you top the beautiful kiss in the end? Apparently the writer had envisioned an ending where Vivian Ward had been devastatingly deserted by her customer after agreeing to a week without cocaine in exchange for rendezvousing with the financier.
In an interview with NBC’s Matt Laeur, writer J.F. Lawton said
At the end of the original script, Richard [Gere]’s character threw my character out of the car, threw the money on top of her and drove away and the credits rolled.
J.F. Lawton, the screenwriter behind the film, explains that at the time he was struggling to make a name for himself in the industry. He had gotten used to rejection as none of his ideas were deemed ‘profitable’ by any Hollywood studio. He then decided to write a dark gritty movie and the ending was in sync with that.
The changes weren’t limited to the climax as J.F. Lawton had initially named the movie 3,000 – a reference to the amount of money Roberts’character got paid at the end of the week.
Thankfully, Disney and director Gary Marshall had come onboard with their own interpretation of the plot. Garry Marshall and the people at Disney made some pretty notable changes to Lawton’s script.
Talking to Vanity Fair, Marshall said
“My vision was a combination of fairytales. Julia was Rapunzel, Richard was Prince Charming and Hector [Elizondo] was the fairy godmother,” Marshall told Vanity Fair. “It didn’t seem like a vision everybody would have, but I did.”
As fate would have it, Marshall and Disney were able to perfectly film their vision and we got Pretty Woman. It’s just one of those instances where everything falls in its place by the end – just like the movie.