Danny Could Have Died In The Shining
Posted: April 2, 2017, 11:47
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Diane Johnson: The ending was changed almost entirely because Kubrick found it a cliche to just blow everything up.
Diane Johnson: In the book, nobody gets killed except Jack. And Kubrick really thought somebody should get killed — because it was a horror movie. So we weighed the dramatic possibilities of killing off various characters and did different treatments. We actually talked it over in detail the possibility of having different people getting killed.
Even Danny, at one point, was briefly considered for the ending’s tragic victim…
Diane Johnson: In one of the treatments — which has leaked online — Wendy kills Jack in self-defense in the third act. Then Hallorann arrives, and ALSO gets possessed by the hotel and becomes the finale’s surprise “big bad.”
Jan Harlan: Very often crew members asked him, “Can you explain that to me?” And he said, “I never explain anything, I don’t understand it myself. It’s a ghost film!”
Jan Harlan: Stanley wanted to make sure that nobody would ever re-assemble his edit in any other way. All outtakes and unused scenes were systematically destroyed — including negatives and rushes. He himself knew that he would never consider a re-cut. He was someone who lived totally in the present. He never looked back.
Here is also the script for an unreleased end-scene that was cut from the movie.
