Zoolander's original pitch featured an ending wherein the movie's titular protagonist "died and went to heaven," but the studio passed on the idea.
The cast and crew of Zoolander recently sat down with Esquire to celebrate the twenty-year anniversary of the Ben Stiller-led satire. Reflecting on the classic 2001 comedy, John Hamburg, the movie's co-writer, remembered a time in which the team considered giving the film a much darker ending where Derek Zoolander would have "died and went to heaven."
Actor Ben Stiller recalled the forsaken finale that would have seen Derek Zoolander facing down a bullet train as it zooms towards him on a track. "He has to shoot the 'Blue Steel' or 'Magnum' look at the train to stop it, and it doesn't work," he explained. "The train plows and kills him, basically, and then he goes up to heaven."
The scene resulting in Derek's demise was never actually filmed as the studio ultimately didn't think it was funny enough. The team returned to the drawing board and ended up replacing it with a "feel-good ending" in which Derek, Hansel, and Maury hatched a plan to open a center forants "Kids Who Can't Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too."
Zoolander spawned a sequel in 2016, which wouldn't have been possible had Derek kicked the bucket. He also wouldn't have been able to rub shoulders with the stacked roster of celebrity cameos lined up for the second film — including one from Justin Bieber that served to "delight and appall audiences in equal measure," according to IGN's review of Zoolander 2.
Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
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The cast and crew of Zoolander recently sat down with Esquire to celebrate the twenty-year anniversary of the Ben Stiller-led satire. Reflecting on the classic 2001 comedy, John Hamburg, the movie's co-writer, remembered a time in which the team considered giving the film a much darker ending where Derek Zoolander would have "died and went to heaven."
Actor Ben Stiller recalled the forsaken finale that would have seen Derek Zoolander facing down a bullet train as it zooms towards him on a track. "He has to shoot the 'Blue Steel' or 'Magnum' look at the train to stop it, and it doesn't work," he explained. "The train plows and kills him, basically, and then he goes up to heaven."
The scene resulting in Derek's demise was never actually filmed as the studio ultimately didn't think it was funny enough. The team returned to the drawing board and ended up replacing it with a "feel-good ending" in which Derek, Hansel, and Maury hatched a plan to open a center for
Zoolander spawned a sequel in 2016, which wouldn't have been possible had Derek kicked the bucket. He also wouldn't have been able to rub shoulders with the stacked roster of celebrity cameos lined up for the second film — including one from Justin Bieber that served to "delight and appall audiences in equal measure," according to IGN's review of Zoolander 2.
Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
Continue reading...