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Five movies that were almost ruined by the studios making them

It turns out that some beloved movies dodged some serious bullets, and at the risk of mixing metaphors, the call was coming from inside the house. That's right, some classics were almost completely ruined by the very studio producing them.

"Gravity" almost had flashbacks and a romantic sub-plot

gravitymovie.tumblr.com
gravitymovie.tumblr.com

Audiences seemed to really respond to “Gravity”-- probably because it’s the closest any of us will ever get to experiencing actual space travel, especially in this age when even washed-up pop stars can’t make it into space.

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That sensation of being stranded in Earth’s orbit may have been undercut, however, if the studio had gotten its way. Apparently, executives wanted “Gravity” to contain flashbacks to Sandra Bullock’s life on Earth (presumably consisting of driving buses and being afraid of the Internet)-- and even more insanely, they wanted her to have a romantic subplot in which the mission control commander is in love with her.

"The Wizard of Oz"  almost cut "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for lack of realism

It’s hard to imagine “The Wizard of Oz” without Dorothy (Judy Garland)’s iconic song “Over the Rainbow”-- but that’s almost exactly what happened. The song was almost cut from the movie because some executives thought it slowed the pace down, and one guy thought it was just weird that Judy Garland would be singing in a farmyard. Yup, in a movie with witches and flying monkeys, a young girl singing on a farm would have really stood out as unusual.

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"Star Trek" almost changed Spock to please religious groups

The pointy ears that almost weren't (Bertil Unger/Evening Standard/Getty Images)
The pointy ears that almost weren't (Bertil Unger/Evening Standard/Getty Images)

Almost ruining the classic TV show, and the string of movies that would eventually follow, one of the most iconic characters in pop-culture, Mr. Spock from “Star Trek,” was almost completely changed for ridiculous reasons-- Spock almost didn’t have pointy ears.

The reason? NBC feared that Spock’s pointy ears were satanic, and didn’t want to anger religious groups. They even took the drastic step of airbrushing out the points in his ears in some publicity photos.

"The Breakfast Club" was almost more like "Porky's"

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Tumblr

While it’s now a widely-acknowledged classic, when it was in production, studio executives wanted “The Breakfast Club” to be more like Canadian teen sex comedy “Porky’s.” This included re-writes that added a scene where the boys find a peephole into the girl’s locker room, allowing them to spy on the swim team-- because gratuitous, meaningless nudity would have been a nice way for those kids to unwind after going through intense, emotional catharsis. 

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"Back to the Future" was almost called "Spaceman From Pluto"

 
 

The head of Universal, Sid Sheinberg wanted to rename “Back to the Future,” “Spaceman From Pluto,"
a reference to that comic book belonging to the kid who thinks Marty is an alien. Yeah, seriously. Of course that title wasn’t very relevant, and ultimately would have been super-confusing for audiences who likely would have gone to the movie expecting a) a spaceman, and b) Pluto.

Luckily Steven Spielberg cleverly embarrassed him into relenting, writing back to Sheinberg:  “Dear Sid, thanks so much for your most humorous memo. We all really got a big laugh out of it.”