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‘The Shining’: Read the Script Pages For Stanley Kubrick’s Deleted Finale!

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One of the most curious decisions in the history of cinema was back in May of 1980 when Stanley Kubrick deleted the final moments of his adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining after hitting theaters. Maybe it was the mixed critical reaction, or maybe because he realized it was just freakin’ stupid (’cause it is), but either way it’s never been seen again.

Thanks to fan site The Overlook Hotel, run by Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich, we can now use the power of imagination to view the final scenes. The site has shared the 4 pages of the screenplay that were snipped from the infamous psychological horror tale that starred Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd. Since a few still images remain, it’ll help you play the story out in your head. Below you’ll find the pages, which take us into a hospital where both Wendy and Danny are recovering from the ax-attack.

“This hospital epilogue was located between the shot of Jack frozen in the snow and the long dolly shot through the lobby that ends on the July 4, 1921 framed photo,” explains the site.

They continue, “Kubrick decided to remove the scene very shortly after the U.S. opening, sending out assistants to excise the scene from the dozens of prints showing in Los Angeles and New York City. All known copies of the scene were reportedly destroyed, although it is rumored that one surviving copy may exist.

Very little remains of the hospital epilogue beyond some continuity polaroids, costumes, and 35mm film trims housed in the Stanley Kubrick Archive. Evidence of just how late in the process the scene was removed lives on in the form of two actors listed in the end credits, despite the fact that they don’t appear in the finished film: Burnell Tucker in the role of “Policeman” and Robin Pappas in the role of “Nurse”.

Kubrick’s co-screenwriter on The Shining, Diane Johnson, had this to say about the deleted epilogue:

Kubrick had filmed a final scene that was cut, where Wendy and Danny are recovering from the shock in a hospital and where Ullman visits them.

Kubrick felt that we should see them in the hospital so we would know that they were all right. He had a soft spot for Wendy and Danny and thought that, at the end of a horror film, the audience should be reassured that everything was back to normal.

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Christopher Nolan Says He’s “Always Been Interested” in Directing a Horror Movie

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Pictured: 'The Odyssey'

Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.

Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?

Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”

“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.

So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?

He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.

Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.

Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)

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