Speaking to Graham Norton on his self-titled chat show recently, Hollywood star Julia Roberts shared that the original screenplay for Pretty Woman was very different than the movie we all know and love.
Graham said that the movie was “much darker” in its original form ― and having heard Julia’s description of it, I have to agree.
“I auditioned for this movie that was called 3000,” the Erin Brockovich actor told Graham. The name referred to the amount of money the movie’s main character paid a sex worker ― “and she was a drug addict,” Julia explained.
“The movie ended by him pulling down a side street in Los Angeles, and they have a fight, and he just says, ‘Get out’ and he kind of throws her out the car, throws the money on her, and drives away. The end,” she added.
In fact, former studio executive Jeffrey Katzenberg has previously said that Julia’s character died of an overdose at the end of the initial script. Oof.
So, how did we end up with the film we know and love today?
“The company that was making it folded, and the movie disappeared and I was crushed,” Julia told Graham. “And the next thing I knew, they said, ‘Disney picked up this film... and Garry Marshall is going to direct it.’”
Disney, which is known for feelgood and child-friendly movies, was hardly likely to produce the script as-was ― and at that point in his career, Garry had worked on shows like The Fonz And The Happy Days Gang and Mork & Mindy.
So naturally, Julia was a little surprised by the pairing. “I was like, ‘oh, of course, this makes perfect sense to me,’” she sarcastically said of the change in director and producers.
“I went in to meet Garry, and he told me all the ways he was gonna change this and make it funny,” she shared with Graham.
In fact, she revealed some changes were so last-minute that they were, as Graham puts it, “kind of writing [the movie] as they were filming.”
“We would break at lunch at maybe 10:15 in the morning because we were out of pages,” Julia said. “We would just kind of, make it up ― Garry would do things like this... ‘Uhhh ― be funny! Action!’,” she added.
People were pretty surprised
“Imagine signing on to play a drug-addicted [sex worker] in a dark drama, then the producers tell you the film’s retooled into a rom-com with Disney money,” one commenter said in response to a YouTube short of the interview.
“That original ending sounds a lot more realistic,” another (rather depressingly) added.
“OMG! I loooove hearing about how movies and songs get made. The creative journey is filled with surprises!” yet another person shared.
I couldn’t agree more...