30 Times Movie Producers Made The Right Call To Delete A Scene From Their Film

"In Back To The Future, there’s a very strange deleted scene where Marty is nervous that he might mess up the future and turn out gay."

Stephanie

• Published in Interesting
• August 13, 2023

Filmmakers have a lot of important decisions to make during the production of a movie. How will a particular scene play out? Does it need to be tweaked? Is the actor delivering the scene getting the intended emotion across? How can it be done better?

And, sometimes, it may even be in the film's best interest for a scene to be deleted entirely. Reddit user u/Freeman528491 recently sparked an interesting discussion in the r/Movies subreddit on the topic of deleted film scenes.

The Redditor asked, "What's a deleted scene from a movie where the decision to leave that scene on the cutting room floor was absolutely the right call?" And, as always, the Reddit community didn't hold back with their responses.

When reading through some of these deleted moments, it becomes clear what a tough job these talented filmmakers have. They need to be meticulous about making decisions, and prepared to back them at all costs.

After all, the choice between deleting a scene or leaving it in could ultimately mean incredible success or utter disaster for the movie upon its release. Keep scrolling to take a look at 30 times movie producers have made the right call to delete a scene from their movie.

1. First Blood

The original cut of "First Blood" was over 3 hours long and full of cheesy dialogue. Stallone feared the movie would destroy his career.

He even tried to buy the film negatives in order to burn them. He eventually told the producers to cut most of his lines. That decision turned a turd into a goldmine.

2. Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump - the deleted scene where Forrest saves MLK Jr from being attacked by police dogs.

3. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, there’s a scene where Ferris explains that he pays for all his hijinks by stealing his father’s credit cards. Leaving that scene in would have turned the movie from "madcap teen adventure" to "further criminal sh**baggery" in my opinion.

4. Star Wars: A New Hope

There’s a deleted scene from the original Star Wars: A New Hope that happens right as the initial space battle is taking place. They would’ve cut to Luke on Tatooine gazing up at the distant battle and wishing he was a part of it.

Then they’d have followed his home life. It was a brilliant decision to cut this and to let the droids introduce us to Luke about 20 minutes into the movie.

5. Empire Strikes Back

6. The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption has a couple that were wisely left on the cutting room floor. After Andy's escape from his cell is discovered, there was supposed to be a scene where a young prison guard is made to crawl through the hole Andy made in the wall to see where it led.

It of course led to the filthy sewer pipe Andy crawled through, so the guard whines and then vomits loud enough for the whole cell block to hear, and Red thinks it's just hilarious. It's a funny scene, but absolutely wrong for that moment in the movie.

There is also an extended version of Red out on parole and not being able to handle life outside. In particular, Red has been in prison since the 1920s and gets out in 1967, so hippies freak him out, girls going around bra-less and in short skirts freak him out, and the busy pace of life outside freaks him out, so he has a panic attack in the bathroom at work.

It's all unnecessary; showing the tragic fate of Brooks Hatlen earlier got the notion of "institutionalized" across. A few lines of narration by Red to show he is going through the same thing ended up far more effective than actually showing it.

7. Leon The Professional

Leon The Professional. There's a very unpleasant scene that tries to make their relationship sexual. Do not watch the extended or director's cut.

8. Star Wars: A New Hope

Han Solo walking over Jabba's tail. Pretty much every single change made to the original trilogy. While not original footage but still so completely out of place.

9. Moana

In Moana they had a scene where she was getting out her frustrations after an argument with her dad by hitting coconuts with a stick like Baseball into the sea. The Islander advisory group said that wasnt a good representaion of their culture because they would never waste food like that and coconuts are important to them for its many uses.

So Disney cut it. That's why when the ship full of crazy coconut pirates showed up, she jumped on their ship and got a smirk on her face and said, coconuts.... and held the oar up like a baseball bat. Because she was confident she was skilled in hitting them. They kept that part in.

10. Jeepers Creepers

Jeepers creepers. The creeper f*****g talking. Ruined the whole movie.

11. Anchorman

'Anchorman' had so many deleted scenes and alternate subplots that a DTV 'sequel' called 'Wake Up, Ron Burgundy!' was thrown together. An entire movie made of things that didn't really work.

12. Zootopia

Haven't seen Zootopia mentioned anywhere. It's a really good animated film with a compelling message.

However early versions of the script were about an entirely different story. Some of that story was either in animatic stage or in early previz. That movie was focused on shock collars.

Basically every predator had a collar that would electrocute them if they got too excited. The protagonist of that movie was Nick and he created a theme park for predators where they could take their collar off and let their emotions go. The resulting movie was incredibly dark, as you can imagine.

13. Pretty Woman

Pretty woman's original ending was Richard Gere leaves and Julia Roberts turns into a junkie. They shot the fairytale ending after test audiences hated it.

14. Mrs. Doubtfire

15. Lilo and Stitch

16. Titanic

Titanic. When Rose throws the Heart of the Ocean overboard, there was supposed to be this weird a*s scene where the researcher tries to stop her and she gives this long winded speech before dropping it into the water. It was terrible, and would've damaged the movie so bad.

17. Lord Of The Rings

18. Home Alone

In Home Alone, there’s a scene in the beginning where Uncle Frank pants Kevin when they’re upstairs. It’s really weird and definitely out of place.

19. Cold Mountain

In Cold Mountain, they decided to cut the scene of Civil War widow Natalie Portman offing herself with a shotgun after her baby died. Thank god. It was already a depressing movie.

20. Love Actually

The kid in Love Actually was a trained gymnast, so they filmed an alternate airport sequence where he was flipping over the obstacles instead of just running. Massively over the top.

21. Groundhog Day

In Groundhog Day the reason Phil Connors gets stuck repeating the same day over and over again was originally because his spurned ex-girlfriend did a voodoo curse on him. Thankfully they cut it out and the movie is perfect without an explanation of why it’s happening to him.

22. UHF

23. Avengers: Endgame

Tony Stark meeting an older version of his daughter after the snap in Endgame. Would have lessened the impact of the hologram scene that comes shortly after.

24. Bird Box

In Bird Box, they cut out a scene showing the invisible monsters. Totally the right move - no matter what you show, it could never live up to horror of the unseen threat.

25. Back To The Future

There’s a very strange deleted scene where Marty is nervous that he might mess up the future and turn out gay. Also, Doc makes a playful joke about how Marty can beat his mom if she doesn’t go along with their plan at the dance.

For an 80s movie that holds up pretty well, I’m glad they left this stupid scene on the cutting room floor. It would’ve weighed it down.

26. American Beauty

American Beauty originally ended with a murder trial and the neighbor boy was convicted.

27. The Truman Show

28. Thor

Thor had a massively annoying deleted scene where Thor, once he's become a better person, returns to the cafe where he smashed the coffee cup and apologizes and replaces it. We want our heroes to grow and change, but not that much. When he smashes the coffee cup and says "Another!" that's his most likable moment in the movie! Wisely deleted.

29. Independence Day

Independence Day has an alternate ending where drunk Randy Quaid flies his old crop duster into the alien ship. It’s [laughably bad] and also why in the theatrical cut his fighter jet flies so slowly at the end.

30. Lord Of The Rings: Return of the King

Aragorn vs. Sauron in the end of Return of the King. Sauron was supposed to be this ominous evil, not just a bad guy to have a sword fight with.

There you have it! 30 times movie producers have made the right call to delete a scene from their movie.

Were you surprised by any of the scenes mentioned on the list? We were definitely shocked at the one from Leon The Professional.

If you have any other deleted scenes you'd like to share, we'd love to hear them. You can share them with us in the comment section.

Stephanie