#shoutout to the test audiences with extraordinarily bad taste who blocked this masterpiece of an ending from full release

[not-saying-revolution-but]

. . .

And the plants proceeded to grow and grow / and begin what they came here to do / which was essentially to / eat Cleveland and Des Moines / and Peoria and New York / and this theater!

Little Shop of Horrors (1986), directed by Frank Oz

The original ending of the film mirrors the 1982 off-Broadway musical, featuring the deaths of Seymour and Audrey followed by the destruction of cities as Audrey II takes over the world. The ending reportedly cost over $5 million to produce (~ $12.9 million in 2021). However, the spectacularly macabre finale fell flat with test audiences, preventing its release to the public. Director Frank Oz was forced to re-film the official “happy” ending to appease audiences and release the movie with Warner Bros.

“We had to do it," Oz later recalled, "[and do it] in such a manner that the audience would enjoy the movie. It was very dissatisfying for [writer Howard Ashman and I] that we couldn't do what we wanted. So creatively, no, it didn't satisfy us and being true to the story. But we also understood the realities that they couldn't release the movie if we had that ending.”

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[ID: Five large gifs from the original ending of Little Shop of Horrors (1986). The first shows a reporter beside a road sign for Cleveland  on a black-and-white television screen. The screen changes to show people running away from a killer plant before the image blurs. The second shows a plant roaring as it destroys a bridge. People run across the frame in the foreground. The third shows a crowd of people running back and forth; the camera angle shows only their feet. The fourth shows two plants terrorizing an elevated train with tall buildings behind them. The last shows a plant crawling atop the Statue of Liberty’s diadem as a helicopter hovers above. / End ID]