David Fincher had another ending for SE7EN He wanted to shoot, but the studio stepped in and said no if(typeof ez_ad_units != ‘undefined’){ez_ad_units.push([[728,90],’geektyrant_com-box-3′,’ezslot_15′,112,’0′,’0′])};__ez_fad_position(‘div-gpt-ad-geektyrant_com-box-3-0’);

David Fincher is the director’s mastermind behind dramatic thrillers such as The game, Fight Club, Panic room, Zodiac, The social network, The girl with the dragon tattoo, Girl goneand the brilliant series mind hunter, but it all started with one of his darkest films in his portfolio, Se7en.

Back when the film hit its 20th anniversary, The Telegraph (via /Film) wrote all about the film and its alternate endings that we almost got to see.

These include an ending in which Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) kills Doe, an ending in which Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) shoots Somerset to stop him from killing Doe, an ending in which there is a race against time to save Mills’ pregnant wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), an ending where there is a dead dog in the infamous box, and an ending which takes place in a burning church.

But even with all of those to choose from, Fincher still preferred yet another ending above all of those.

At the end of the film proper, assassin John Doe (Kevin Spacey) has lured Somerset and Mills to the middle of nowhere, with the promise that he will reveal the bodies of his last two victims. Fincher ratchets up the suspense when a delivery van suddenly appears, driving up the long dusty road to where the three men are. The van delivers a box, which we all know by now contains Tracy’s severed head. Doe’s plan comes to fruition when Mills “becomes wrath”, the seventh and final mortal sin, in which he kills Doe in blind rage, thereby also punishing Doe for his sin of envying him. The final two bodies (three, if you count the baby) are Tracy and Doe himself.

This is where, had Fincher gotten his way, audiences would have seen a sudden cut to black as soon as Mills shot Doe, leaving the audience hanging with a long moment of silence before the credits rolled.

Instead, we got the studio finale, in which Somerset watches a police car drive off with Mills later that night. “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, ‘The world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for,'” Somerset says. “I agree with the second part.”

This was definitely an easier disappointment. I like a movie that gives me a little closure after such an intense punch to the gut, so I actually side with the studio on that. But now that I’ve seen the movie loads of times, it might be fun just to watch that version and see how all this time plays out afterwards. Although I’m sure it would be very different to see her like this the first time.