14 Characters Who Were Originally Written As Villains But Eventually Became Heroes Instead

At some point, changes were made to these shows and films.

May

• Published in Film & TV
• June 30, 2022

When it comes to films, character revision is not uncommon. It happens more often than you might think.

There are a variety of reasons why filmmakers might choose to revise a character, whether it be for creative or practical purposes. Some directors push through with rewriting a character to fit the tone better.

For example, if a film being made is lighter in tone than the source material, the characters become more light-hearted and comedic. On the other hand, if a movie features a darker tone than the source material, the characters may be revised to be more serious and intense.

Another reason why directors rewrite a character is to make them more relatable to the audience. A character might be changed to be from the same country or region as the target audience or to share the same hobbies or interests.

This helps the audience to connect with the character personally and makes them more invested in their story. Finally, filmmakers might also rewrite a character for practical reasons.

If an actor has to drop out of a film due to scheduling conflicts, their character might be rewritten to be played by another actor. Or if a film is being made for a specific market, the characters might be revised to better appeal to that demographic.

Let's take a look at the 15 heroes who were supposed to be villains or unlikable characters.

1. Originally, Elsa wasn't supposed to be a young lady in search of understanding her power.

The filmmakers were going to make her an evil queen backed by an army of snow monsters.

Peter Del Vecho, Frozen's producer, told Entertainment Weekly that the original script is a straightforward adaptation of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen.

The evil snow queen had a tragic past.

After being left on her wedding day, she froze her heart to keep herself from loving again. With her snow army, she would conquer the kingdom and would stop at nothing to achieve her ambition.

In the end, the idea was dropped because they couldn't feel an emotional connection with Elsa. The characters simply weren't relatable.

This guy right here is the evil one in all versions of the script.

2. The John Hammond in the Jurassic Park novel is completely different from the John Hammond of the Spielberg film.

Hammond in the source material is evil and merciless. In the film, he is neither a hero nor a villain.

Hammond survives in the movie. But in the novel, he is consumed by a herd of compsognathus.

In one of the previous scripts of the movie, Hammond was devoured by a velociraptor.

3. Loren Bouchard's original pitch to Fox was different.

He described the Belchers as:

cannibals who served punny burgers made of human flesh

Fox approved his pitch but politely questioned the Belchers' urge to consume human flesh.

According to Bouchard, it came from his background at Adult Swim, where the darker facets of shows are valued.

He ultimately dropped the idea.

But the pilot episode was still titled "Human Flesh." In that episode, a health inspector suspects that the Belchers served burgers made of that stuff.

4. Roald Dahl's personal papers, which were unearthed after his death, revealed that originally, Matilda was an unruly girl.

To make things worse, she dies in the end instead of living with Miss Honey.

Fortunately for fans of the telekinetic girl, the final product is no longer a cautionary tale.

5. Toy Story's beloved protagonist Woody was dangerously close to becoming a violent monster.

Jeffrey Katzenberg demanded the team to create an edgier film with a sense of humor that's "adult, sarcastic, and barbed."

It is a disastrous test screening revealing, to the terror of his toy friends, a nasty Woody pushing Buzz Lightyear out of a window.

This story wasn't received well and the team temporarily shut the film down.

Eventually, we got a movie with nicer characters.

6. Simon was supposed to be an antagonist to be killed off by the Misfits.

He lasted three seasons instead, becoming gradually more valiant with each new episode.

Howard Overman, the creator of the show, liked Rheon as an actor so he just couldn't push through with the original plan.

Nobody is denying that Rheon has the ability to portray a terrifying villain, though.

7. Steve Harrington wasn't originally supposed to be the endearing, bat-wielding mother figure he turned out to be. This is what the Duffer Brothers revealed about the book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down.

Instead, he was supposed to become a "big douchebag" who was killed off during the first season's finale.

However, the Duffer Brothers were so impressed by Joe Keery's performance, and Steve managed to go past his role as the jerk jock and develop into the character we knew he could be.

8. While we're on the topic of Stranger Things: Dacre Montgomery, who plays Max's violent and abusive older brother Billy, specifically requested that the antagonist be written a more sympathetic history.

The actor requested two scenes that would make Billy more complex than his unpleasant characterization.

In an interview with Bustle, here's what Montgomery said.

That was my effort with the Duffers to show that side that no one is just bad...the ending is so fantastic in the same way. Billy is humanized and redemption is very evident, and that was a really nice arc for me to go really dark.

According to the actor, Billy is interesting because he's in the grey area.

9. Hank Heywood was supposed to be the villain in the fourth season of Legends of Tomorrow.

Tom Wilson was later cast, but he was simply too kind for all of these horrible medical experiments.

Showrunner Phil Klemmer said that the team realized that he can't just be the villain.

So they revised the story to make Hank work for the real Big Bad.

10. Meryl Streep wanted some changes to her character Joanna prior to getting cast in Kramer vs. Kramer.

For Streep, the character in the original novel was "an ogre, a princess, an ass."

The book's author, Avery Corman, intended it as a criticism against feminists who, in his opinion, viewed men as the bad guys.

Joanna, in Streep's opinion, was not a villain, but rather a representation of the challenges that women actually face.

Streep played a big role in developing the character.

Kramer vs. Kramer would eventually win multiple awards at the Oscars.

Streep also answered an interviewer, asking her if the film was a slap at feminists and women as a whole.

I don’t feel that’s true at all. I feel that the basis of feminism is something that has to do with liberating men and women from prescribed roles.

The cynical British vampire Spike, who fluctuated between villainous, chaotic neutral, and finally decent and perhaps noble, wasn't planned to be on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for more than five episodes.

It wasn't planned for him to die heroically, either.

James Marsters said on an episode of the Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum podcast that he was supposed to die by Angelus' hands

He also said that the show's creator Joss Whedon thought that vampires should be hideous and should not be depicted as love interests.

Regardless of Whedon's unpleasant behavior on set, Spike managed to outlive the intended duration of his villainous role.

Hiccup meets his long-lost mother, Valka, in How to Train Your Dragon 2, who, according to director Dean DeBlois, was intended to be the sympathetic villain.

This Valka would want to remove the dragons from the village of Berk because she thought "people could not be trusted and that dragons needed to be safeguarded from them."

While Hiccup eventually prevailed in their battle, during which he fought to maintain his way of life, Valka persisted in her belief that Hiccup needs to make a choice about whether or not he'll live with dragons.

In the film's final version, it's Drago Bludvist who became the antagonist.

13. In Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, each child is portrayed as greedy, filthy, unruly, and foolish, and "none is worse than Pinocchio."

The original story ends with Pinocchio's death by execution.

When it was time for a Disney adaptation, Walt Disney required significant changes to the story.

For example, unlike in the book, this version of Pinocchio does not kill Jiminy Cricket.

14. Lastly, this story is about two actual people who had serious concerns about how producers were molding their on-screen personas. The Mythbusters are, of course, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage.

The two maintain a warm, albeit competitive and occasionally irritated, interaction on the show, but they are not real-life buddies.

However, neither Savage nor Hyneman were asked to act as though they were closest buddies for the show. They were instructed to create drama by fighting on camera.

As you can see from the situations above, a lot of factors can determine the final story of the film.

The director, the writers, and even the actors can make changes to the script. But why do these changes happen?

One of the most common reasons for changes in a film's story is that the original script simply wasn't working. The plot may have been too confusing, or certain characters might not have been developed enough.

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