Let me start this article by saying, if you haven’t seen the film yet don’t go any further as the ending of Birdman will be discussed.
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During the Jeff Goldsmith’s podcast, Birdman co-writer Alex Dinelaris discusses the original ending for the film, that wasn’t used. The theatrical version involved Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) shooting himself in the beak while he is delivering a monologue. There is a standing ovation and then there is a flash-forward to Riggan’s in the hospital. He finds out that his play was a success because of the ultra-realism he brought to it with the shooting incident. Life is good. His daughter Sam (Emma Stone) even brings him the flowers that he likes. Thinks get weird when she leaves to get a vase for them and Riggan takes off the bandages on his face. He looks out a window and sees birds and then goes on the ledge. When Sam returns Riggan is gone. She looks out the window, up in the sky, and smiles. The end. But that’s not how it was supposed to go done originally.
“So we had one other ending that was satirical,” Alex Dinelaris explained. “The other ending was that he shoots himself on the stage. The camera comes around to the audience and their standing ovation — all the way around, like Chivo [Emmanuel Lubezki] and Alejandro did the whole time — and the segue was back on to the stage and on the stage was like James Lipton or Charlie Rose and Michael [Keaton] was sitting across from him and he’s sort of reading the review. He’s saying, ‘Oh my God, you got this tremendous review’ and Michael is like, ‘Yeah.’”
“Then the camera prowled like it did the whole film, went back stage through the halls we’ve seen the whole time and we’d get to the dressing room where literally Johnny Depp would be sitting looking in the mirror and putting on his Riggan Thomson wig and then the poster of Pirates of the Caribbean 5 would be in the back,” Dinelaris said. “In Jack Sparrow’s voice [it would say], ‘What the fuck are we doing here, mate?’ It was going to be the satire of the endless loop of that.” Dinelaris added with a chuckle, “We couldn’t get Johnny Depp or even the poster.”
(via The Film Stage)
