Hancock
Will Smith ’s superhero vehicleHancockwon few new fans for the actor , but the motion-picture show earlier had a far darker ending which could have made the moving-picture show an overstrung megahit hit . discharge in 2008 , the darkly comic superhero movieHancockhad an challenging premise that seemed to be full of potential for comedy , action , and tragedy alike . The plastic film came at the end of a string of bang for Smith , and although it performed well at the box office , Hancock ’s uneven tone meant it earned the choler of critics . Alongside the flawed Richard Matheson adaptation , I Am Legendand the schmaltzySeven Pounds , Hancockcontributed to Smith ’s dwindling reputation as a superstar and soonSmith took a calling break to focus on his family .
The film follow Smith as the nominal anti - hero , a superpowered being who has turn to alcoholism to grapple with the world ’s refusal to respect his abilities . When he economize a cynical publicist played by Jason Bateman from certain death , the grapheme promises to requite him by improving Hancock ’s public image . What follow is a serial of goofy set - pieces and a side of bittersweet drama as Smith ’s hero sincerely try out to improve himself , but a dark twist latterly in the film sees the fib turn pitiful . Mary , the married woman of Bateman ’s case , is revealed to be an immortal much like Hancock , and the viewer learns that the pair were fan decades earlier .
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This revelation drag down the tone of the movie asHancockis forced to start taking itself gravely . Smith shortly starts succumbing to wound thanks to a plot contrivance . Eventually , the film ’s semi - sad termination ensure him expatriate himself to the moon so Bateman ’s publicizer and Mary can live in peace . But ironically the original , much more acute ending was actually far more interesting . Much likethe darker original hand for recent hitPalm Springs , the original screenplay forHancockwas praised for its dark tone and compare to Mike Figgis ’ tragic classicLeaving Las Vegas . This iteration of the celluloid close on a bleak , unrelenting , and bloody note . Critics agreed that the finished moving picture was an imperfect movie and that the tonal transposition into self - serious melodrama after the halfway mark doomed the light - hearted humour of the curtain raising scenes . But Hancock ’s original ending was a more daring climax as well as a gorier , sadder one .
How Hancock Escaped Extended Development Hell
The production account of Hancock was a long and tortured story . For many years , the film was indevelopment hell like fellow superhero movie The Flash . The movie went through many rounds of rewrite before it finally reach the bad screen . Initially , screenwriter Vincent Ngo ’s spec script titledTonight , He Comeswas written way back in 1996 and attracted the attention ofTop Gundirector Tony Scott . The task was by and by attach toHeatdirector Michael Mann , but the neo - noir master prefer to make 2006’sMiami Viceinstead . finally , Peter Berg came on board to direct after falling for the original specification playscript ’s intense , spunky tone . In fact , Berg was the one who liken the original draft toLeaving Las Vegas , calling that edition ofHancock“a vituperative character study of this self-destructive alcohol-dependent superhero ” .
The Darker Original Ending
In this original tipple , the movie opens on the film ’s narrator discussing the experience of witnessing something traumatic . Throughout the film , the interview assume this narrator isWill Smith ’s Hancock and the trauma he ’s verbalize about is the decades of cataclysm he has look . The film makes it unmortgaged that these tragedies have take a severe psychological toll on the superpowered being , result in effort to better himself before he lose his psyche . These attempts are abortive , as the picture ’s culmination sees him deform to violence after failing to stop another disaster . Near the death of the moving picture , a collapse building kills the family ’s loving female parent Mary after she is kidnapped . angered and driven mad , Hancock himself continue to massacre an entire police section in frustration .
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But after this incredibly violent sequence , the pic ’s bombshell twist - which ranks up there withFight Club ’s twistfor impact - reveals that the narrator is n’t Hancock himself at all . alternatively , the spectator observe that Hancock transferred his tycoon to the kinsfolk ’s vernal son Aaron and sent him back in prison term to save his female parent . The traumatic incident that the storyteller , Aaron , was talking about witnessing was walking in on his parents feature sexual activity , and his meat - break in madness comes from trying and failing to economise his mother ’s life sentence . He has been through this before and will go through it all over again , as the now - superpowered Aaron is snare in a never - end loop and is ineffectual to bring through his mother from her inevitable fate . It ’s this frustration and hopelessness that force back his tragical fall and take a shit the outburst of homicidal madness inevitable .
Why They Changed It
It is intelligible that the film - makers behind Hancock decide not to use this bleak and vicious turn ending for the ruined film . In 2008 very few blockbuster carry an R - valuation , and the few which did were not comic book adaptations or superhero story . It would be almost a decade before the likes ofJokerand theDeadpoolseries made darker , more adult comic Holy Scripture movies seem not only viable but profitable , and by then it was clear thataHancocksequel was n’t find . Nonetheless , the ending of Vincent Ngo’sTonight , He Comesis a darker , more interesting piece of subversive superhero cinema than the sanitized and tonally uneven film whichHancockeventually became . Whilst the misgiving of the creators is apprehensible , it is a shame that the film missed its fortune to make cinema history as one of the early thoughtful superhero deconstructions . At a fourth dimension when the the like ofThe Dark KnightandWatchmenwere push the boundaries of superhero cinema , it ’s dissatisfactory thatHancockplayed it safe when the film had such a striking likely ending .
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