Thank god they changed it.
It’s a classic tale of boy meets girl. Except this time, the boy is a wealthy businessman and the girl is a prostitute.
You all know Pretty Woman. You loved Julia Roberts, you swooned over Richard Gere, you happy clapped at the couldn’t-be-better ending.
But originally this epic love story had a very different ending.
Related: A love story so strange and beautiful it’s hard to believe it’s true.
Prepare yourselves… we’re about to crush your dreams.
Okay, so we know the ending: Edward Lewis (Gere) wins Vivian Ward (Roberts) back with a grand romantic gesture. Perfect. Great. The End.
But the original story? Dark, depressing, terrible. At least, according to Roberts.
“[It was a] really dark and depressing, horrible, terrible story about two horrible people, and my character was this drug addict,” she told TCM.
“A bad-tempted, foulmouthed, ill-humored, poorly educated hooker who had this weeklong experience with a foulmouthed, ill-tempered, bad-humored, very wealthy, handsome but horrible man, and it was just a grisly, ugly story about these two people.”
And the working title? 3000. As in, how much money Vivian Ward costs per week.
Related: Why there was never a sequel to the world’s best chick movie.
So what was the heinous original ending Roberts speaks of? Get ready for it…
Gere’s character was supposed to pay the prostitute for her services and then throw her back out onto the street.
Blogger Liz Shannon Miller said of the original plot: “He didn’t fall in love with her in the original script, and she does end up back on the street. He literally puts her $3,000 in the gutter after she throws herself out of the limo.”
Us too, Viv.
How old were you when you first watched Pretty Woman?
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Top Comments
So basically the original storyline was closer to reality....
I must have been in my late teens/early 20s, I think - can't remember when it came out. The basic premise always made me uncomfortable. She was a street prostitute - seemingly pretty upbeat and undamaged by her chosen career - still vulnerable enough to be hurt when someone treated her like a "hooker" and with some lame estrangement from her family backstory. I know it's meant to be a "fariytale" but the whole client falling in love with the sex worker never really struck me as very romantic. I found it difficult to believe that someone as gorgeous, seemingly educated and drug free as she appeared to be in the movie did not have any other choices.