When a book is confirmed to be heading to the big screen, fans who have already devoured the original version have plenty of expectations. Will the movie be able to capture the raw emotions of the story? Are all the characters going to act how you imagined them in your head? Is there going to be an acknowledgment or tease of follow-up books that have already been published? Perhaps the most distinct thing that will come to mind for some readers, though, is just how accurate a movie will really be to a book on the whole. Will a downbeat ending get turned into a Hollywood one?
With very few exceptions, most movie adaptations of books change something. Maybe a character gets cut out, maybe a scene gets excised, but sometimes the entire structure gets changed, including a brand new ending. As a result of a brand new ending in the film, book fans may find themselves disappointed that the fidelity across mediums was absent, but sometimes the change in ending can offer an all-new experience. Even better is when the ending change gives the story even more depth, like these adaptations that found new meaning in their fresh endings. Suffice to say, Spoilers will follow.
10) Annihilation
Alex Garland’s 2018 film based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer is a pretty distinct book-to-film adaptation, in part because the filmmaker noted in interviews that he didn’t want to make a direct adaptation but simply wanted to capture the mood and tone of the original book. As a result, two distinct experiences of a similar story have been created, both of which have drastically different conclusions.
In VanderMeer’s book, the biologist (who is unnamed, unlike the film), decides to continue exploring Area X, leading into the two sequels that he penned. Instead, the film returns to its post-exploration interrogation with Natalie Portman’s Lena, concluding with a tease that Lena and her husband may not be themselves at all, but copies made by the Shimmer from Area X. This is a great example of endings that may be totally different, but both of which work given the stories told.
9) Blade Runner
Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel has a lot in common with its source material, at least in terms of surface-level narrative and characters, like Deckard hunting down rogue androids. That said, there are distinct tonal differences in both stories, but also a conclusion that goes in a different direction. Dick’s novel wraps up with Deckard having arrived at a point in his life where he no longer harbors intense disdain for androids, taking up a robot toad as a pet. As fans know good and well, Scott’s movie ends on an ambiguous note that has been subject to debate for decades: Is Deckard himself a replicant?
8) Fight Club
There’s a lot about David Fincher’s adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel that is almost exactly the same, though some liberties and new scenes are obviously added. The endings however leave the larger story in two completely different places. In Palahniuk’s novel, the narrator, having survived the planned terrorist attack by Project Mayhem, wakes up in a mental hospital where orderlies greet him and reveal that plans remain in motion to keep the group going.
On the flipside, Fincher’s novel is marginally optimistic at least, implying that the Narrator has eliminated Tyler Durden for good and may have even made the world a better place (since the target of their explosion was credit card companies, seemingly freeing people of their debt). Of note, both the book and the movie have the narrator shooting himself to try and get rid of Tyler, but the diverge quickly after.
7) Forrest Gump
As fans know, Forrest Gump the film ends in a way that leaves audiences weeping over the emotions, as Tom Hanks’ character is raising his son with Jenny back in their hometown, speaking to his beloved’s grave to update her on how their lives are going. It’s a final moment that almost certainly helped the movie put a stranglehold on audiences in the ’90s, and frankly it’s one that had to be made in the adaptation process because the book goes a totally different way. Winston Groom’s original novel concludes with Forrest deciding to move on from Jenny and their son since she’s already married to another man, moving to New Orleans and setting the stage for the sequel, Gump and Co.
6) First Blood
It’s well documented that First Blood and the rest of the Rambo movies stand in stark contrast to one another, with the first being largely a dramatic character study about how a veteran was failed by the system and the rest being just explosive action movies about killing. Ironically, the original First Blood novel by David Morrell has more in common with the Rambo movie sequels than the actual adaptation. Though the differences are throughout, the endings are perhaps the biggest change. In Morrell’s book, Rambo is killed by Sam Trautman, a pretty major change from Rambo being taken into federal custody and put on an ambulance to treat his wounds in the movie.
5) Hannibal
The runaway success of not only Thomas Harris’ novels about Hannibal Lecter, plus the culture-defining adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, meant that the next adventure of the character was something fans were desperate to read and see. A decade later, they finally got what they wanted, and though Ridley Scott’s adaptation of the book is incredibly close to the source material, it was forced to change the ending to one that audiences would at least not completely riot over upon seeing.
In Harris’ novel, Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter become lovers and live together outside the US, the doctor himself having used a slew of different techniques to brainwash the FBI agent. This shocking ending was something readers detested, meaning the movies had to go another way. Instead, the film ends with Starling handcuffing Lecter to herself to ensure his capture by the FBI, only for Lecter to cut off his own hand and escape, setting the stage for another movie (that never came).
4) Knock at the Cabin
M. Night Shyamalan’s 2023 adaptation of Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World is one of the most straight forward books to film of the 2020s, that is, until the ending. Throughout both the novel and the movie, the question of whether this warning about the end of the world is even real, and whether a sacrifice chosen by the main characters can prevent it, is brought up multiple times.
In the book, Eric and Andrew’s adopted daughter Wen is shockingly killed by accident, with her “sacrifice” apparently not enough to end the apocalypse since it wasn’t done purposefully, wrapping up as the pair brace for whatever comes next. The Knock at the Cabin film, however, has Eric agree to be killed as a sacrifice, which appears to be enough and reveals that the world is no longer ending. It’s one of the most drastic changes to the source material in a movie, not only occupying a totally different narrative space but a thematic one that seems to stand in stark contrast to the book itself.
3) The Little Mermaid
To the shock of no one, Disney’s adaptation of The Little Mermaid is one of the best examples of changes to the story and a “Hollywood ending” that we’ve ever seen. The 1989 animated movie literally ends with Ariel and the prince’s kiss and their marriage, both happily married as both land and sea celebrate.
As many may be aware, Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale goes…a different way. In the text, the Sea Witch’s bargain with the mermaid includes some additional details and obligations, including that if the prince she wishes to marry actually marries someone else, the next day the mermaid will become sea foam in the waves. Well, suffice to say, that’s exactly what happens, and when the mermaid dissolves into foam, she then becomes an ethereal spirit on the Earth. Not exactly a Disney ending.
2) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
It’s pretty well agreed that Peter Jackson’s three-movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings is not only one of the best movie trilogies of all-time but also one of the most comprehensive adaptations from text to screen in film history. Fans of Tolkien’s text are also well aware of the differences and cut characters, but The Return of the King may have the biggest change.
One of the last chapters of the book is known as “The Scouring of the Shire,” the evil wizard Saruman having invaded the home of the Hobbits while they were away, laying waste to the beautiful landscape and forcing them to take part in a rebellion after their journey to Mordor. As fans know, this is removed entirely from the feature film, hough is referenced in a possible vision of the future in The Fellowship of the Rings. The truth is that this change had to be made; not only is the event almost too much to add to the story, but Jackson’s film was itself already sitting at a robust runtime, with another battle arriving after the destruction of the One Ring almost certainly adding too much to the fantasy epic.
1) Total Recall
Though Blade Runner may have shifted some elements of Philip K. Dick’s novel, the 1990 Total Recall, an adaptation of his short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” makes foundational changes that make it almost completely different. Though there are many, many changes across the short story to film for this one, we of course have to focus on the ending, which arrive at destinations so far apart they may as well be on different continents.
In Dick’s story, the protagonist Douglas Quail has his memories of being an assassin that went to Mars erased by a fantasy of meeting aliens as a boy, who decided not to invade Earth because he was so nice to them. The big twist, of course, is that this fake memory is revealed to be a real memory, and a ticking clock now exists for when Quail dies. Total Recall the film, however, includes no aliens and takes place almost entirely on Mars, ending with Schwarzenegger’s Douglas Quaid saving the entire red planet by activating a device that gives it a breathable atomsphere and killing the tyranical governor.
