40 Early Versions of Our Favorite Movie and TV Characters That Thankfully Changed for the Better

We like Ego from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ as a brain way more than as one massive sperm cell
40 Early Versions of Our Favorite Movie and TV Characters That Thankfully Changed for the Better

Not that we’d know from experience, but it seems like creativity is pretty fluid. An initial idea is always changing and morphing into a slightly (or sometimes wildly) different thing. Which makes total sense — for non-egotistical creators who don’t fear change.

These creators understood that their one bright idea for a character needed drastic changes to become the people (or things) we know and love today.

The Ring

The earliest adaptation of The Ring was ridiculously pornographic. In the TV movie Ring: Kanzenban, the ghost is an adult woman who appears naked and glowing. CRACKED.COM

Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump was supposed to be a big, overweight, really strong guy. Barry Sonnenfeld, the first choice for director, suggested making Forrest a runner, and the change stuck. CRACKED.COM

Total Recall

Total Recall's Quaid was supposed to be an accountant. The actor they had in mind was Jeff Bridges -- and he'd replaced Richard Dreyfuss. CRACKED.COM

South Park

In the earliest South Park cartoon, Cartman was called Kenny. It was a college short called The Spirit of Christmas: Jesus vs. Frosty, and it features a kid who looks like Cartman getting killed by a snowman while the other kids go Oh my God! Frosty killed Kenny! CRACKED.COM

Gilmore Girls

Gilmore Girls' Luke was originally a woman. At one point, the network said the show needed a male character, so writer Amy Sherman-Palladino just changed Daisy's name to Luke and called it a day. CRACKED.COM

Bonnie and Clyde

They wrote Clyde from 1967's Bonnie and Clyde as bisexual. But this was too controversial for the '60s, so they wrote that out and made him impotent instead. CRACKED.COM

Mad Max 2

Originally, Lord Humungus from Mad Max 2 was going to be Max' old partner Jim Goose. They would have had the actor from the first movie play him, too, but the idea didn't survive early discussions. CRACKED.COM

Beverly Hills Cop

For a while, the main character in Beverly Hills Cop was supposed to be called Cobretti. Не would have been a tough Italian-American cop played by Sly Stallone, who made those rewrites himself back when the studio wanted him to play the lead. But they got rid of him, and his changes, because they wanted a comedy and not an action movie. CRACKED.COM

Toy Story

Originally, Buzz Lightyear was supposed to know he's a toy. SPACE RANGER LIGHTYEAR LASER Не was written a dumb but cheerful guy who knows what he is and he's fine with it, but Joss Whedon rewrote the script and totally changed Buzz. CRACKED.COM

The Muppets

Oiginally, Jim Henson wanted the Muppets to be more grown-up and edgy. Не had them guest-star on variety shows, doing comedy definitely aimed at adults, and he wasn't thrilled when they offered him to put the Muppets on Sesame Street and turn them into kids' entertainment. CRACKED.COM

Darth Maul

MAUL ORIGINALLY LOOKED LIKE A HORROR MOVIE VILLAIN. The Phantom Menace The script described Darth Maul as a vision from your worst nightmare, and artist lain McCaig drew exactly that for his inital design. However, George Lucas thought it was a bit too nightmarish and told Caig to use his second-worst nightmare. CRACKED.COM

Star Wars

ВОВА FETT DREW INSPIRATION FROM CLINT EASTWOOD. The Empire Strikes Back Fett was originally going to sport a poncho - emulating the Man with No Name from For a Few Dollars More. The idea was dropped because the poncho proved to be impractical. His suit was also all white initially but George Lucas thought it looked too clean and had it painted to look more wartorn. CRACKED.COM

The Conjuring

THE NUN WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ANIMATRONIC DEMON. The Conjuring 2 X James Wan originally based the Nun on a Dracula design he developed for a scrapped Castlevania project. A fully animatronic monster was built and even used on set, however, Wan had a sudden change of heart and decided to go with a more grounded and personal monster design. CRACKED.COM

Luke Skywalker

LUKE SKYWALKER SPORTED A MAN BUN AT ONE POINT. The Last Jedi Luke's original design was supposed to invoke Col. Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. We're not sure why the famously bald character prompted the designers to give Luke a man bun, but thankfully the idea got nixed. May the Force be with you, hipster Luke. CRACKED.COM

Scream

GHOSTFACE ALMOST LOOKED LIKE A CHEAP KNOCKOFF. Scream Wes Craven was originally forced to come up with a new design for the mask because Dimension refused to buy the rights to the iconic Ghostface mask-which was owned by Fun World. After being unsatisfied with the new designs, Dimension finally gave in and bought the rights. CRACKED.COM

The Mummy

THE MUMMY LOOKED LIKE YOUNG APOCALYPSE. The Mummy The reboot was initially supposed to feature a male mummy, however, director Alex Kurtzman decided to go in a completely new direction after seeing the post-credits scene of X-Men: Days of Future Past. Не says their concept art for the mummy had the exact same design as the young Apocalypse. CRACKED.COM

Thor

THOR ALMOST ROCKED A JACK KIRBY-INSPIRED LOOK. Thor: Ragnarok Before going with the more traditional gladiator look, Taika Waititi commissioned a Thor design that drew heavily from Kirby's art. Even though it wasn't used in the film, we can't but notice that the suit kinda resembles the Quantum suits used in Avengers: Endgame. CRACKED.COM

Wreck-It Ralph

RALPH COULD'VE BEEN A ONE-HORNED MONSTER. Wreck-It Ralph at a Time ON Ralph drastically changed appearances several times during early production. Everyone's favorite bad guy started off as a horned monster, then became a caveman, before finally morphing into his iconic look. CRACKED.COM

Spider-Man

THE GREEN GOBLIN WAS GOING TO LOOK LIKE AN ACTUAL GOBLIN. Spider-Man An actually functioning animatronic goblin mask was built for the film. However, it proved to be too challenging to apply and wear on a regular basis, so it was dropped in favor of the rejected Power Rangers villain suit. CRACKED.COM

Bob’s Burgers

The Belchers from Bob's Burgers were originally going to be cannibals. It FUN BOB'S BURGERS Home A C Creator Loren Bouchard's first idea was a show about a family that runs a restaurant who are cannibals, but Fox asked him if the cannibalism angle was really needed. CRACKED.COM

Doc Brown

Doc Brown was going to have a pet chimpanzee in Back to the Future. The studio feedback was that no movie with a chimpanzee ever made any money, so they had to throw out the chimp and give Doc a pet dog. CRACKED.COM

Blade Runner

In an early version of the Blade Runner script, Roy Batty's dying word is Crap. Also, Deckard takes Rachel to the countryside and shoots her in the head because, he says, if he hadn't done it, they definitely would have. CRACKED.COM

Minions

The Minions were originally going to be robots, not whatever-they-ares. It'd be more fun to watch robots than actual humans get knocked around, the thinking went - plus, it'd be more believable for robots to be totally naive. CRACKED.COM

Stan Lee

Stan Lee's cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy was going to be more rude. James Gunn's first idea was to make Lee one of the Collector's exhibits and flip off Groot when Groot runs into him. Disney didn't like that idea at all, though. CRACKED.COM

Fantastic Beasts

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them was going to be a documentary. In the very first discussions about the movie, the idea got floated that it could all be a documentary about what Newt Scamander gets up to. CRACKED.COM

Ego

For a long time, Ego from Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was going to look like a giant sperm. After a while, they changed the sperm into a brain. CRACKED.COM

H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft drew Cthulhu as a depressed guy in a bad costume. But he described him as so terrifying, merely looking at him would drive you insane. CRACKED.COM

Dracula

In the original illustrations for Dracula, Dracula wasn't exactly terrifying. BY BRAM STOKER Не looked like a guy in pyjamas with bat wings that he (badly) sewed himself. CRACKED.COM

The Iron Giant

In early illustrations for The Iron Giant novel, the giant looked terrifying. For some reason, he was depicted as a steampunk mecha stalking the woods. CRACKED.COM

Gollum

Before the Lord of the Rings movies, Gollum was usually drawn as a giant, deformed creature. In the books, Tolkien doesn't mention Gollum's size, so artists apparently assumed he was massive. CRACKED.COM

Mr. Freeze

In the early Batman comics, Mr. Freeze looked ridiculous. BUT MR. ZERO AGAIN BRINGS HIS GUN INTO PLAY... THAT WILL STOP YOU COLD, OFFICERS! He was a bald dude with a plastic helmet who looked like a dopey version of Vin Diesel cosplaying an astronaut. CRACKED.COM

Beauty and the Beast

In the 19th century, The Beast from Beauty and the Beast was an anthro. In the original story, the beast is only described as frightful, so artists painted all kinds of Beasts. In 1875, Walter Crane interpreted frightful as a two-legged warthog. CRACKED.COM

Stranger Things

Stranger Things' Steve was supposed to be a really, really shady guy. In one early scene he had forced himself on Nancy at a party. Joe Keery said that, at that point, the character was a total, total dick. CRACKED.COM

Borat

Originally, Borat was supposed to be from Moldova. And his name would have been Alexi Krickler, not Borat. CRACKED.COM

The Last Jedi

The Last Jedì's Rose Tico was supposed to be pretty downbeat. She changed from a grumpy Eeyore type to being enthusiastic and upbeat when Kelly Marie Tran was cast, because Tran's personality basically took over. Rian Johnson even rewrote some scenes after she was cast. CRACKED.COM

Toy Story

They originally wrote Woody from Toy Story as a jerk. He'd do things like insult Slinky Dog and push Buzz out of the bedroom window, and they changed him only when they decided that a kids' movie with an unlikable main character wouldn't work. CRACKED.COM

Frozen

In the early drafts of Frozen, Elsa was a villain. She wasn't Anna's sister, and she was a standard supervillain who raised an army of snow monsters. But that got changed because the team behind Frozen thought it was too derivative and unsatisfying. CRACKED.COM

Star Wars

Luke Skywalker could have been a girl. The original treatment was about a princess and an old man, George Lucas said. Then I wrote her out for a while, and the second draft didn't really have any girls in it at all. I was very disturbed about that. I didn't want to make a movie without any women in it. So I struggled with that, and at one point Luke was a girl. CRACKED.COM

Lord of the Rings

The first version of Aragorn was a hobbit named Trotter. When Tolkien changed him to Aragorn, a lot of Trotter remained, including his actions (and a lot of his dialogue) at the Prancing Pony. CRACKED.COM

Ariel

Ariel from The Little Mermaid was supposed to be blonde. She originally looked like a Babie doll, and only became a redhead after big fights in the studio. CRACKED.COM

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