What’s in the box? There was almost no box.
If you’ve seen \u00ab\u00a0Se7en,\u00a0\u00bb you know how chilling the final scene is. The unimaginable ending made Brad Pitt’s \u00ab\u00a0What’s in the box? \u00a0\u00bb line infamous, thanks to a creepy special delivery his detective character receives.
Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker told The Hollywood Reporter the ending made it into the film by accident. Original director Jeremiah S. Chechik (\u00ab\u00a0National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation\u00a0\u00bb) told Walker to rewrite the script with the Gwyneth-Paltrow’s-head-in-the-box scene taken out.
But when David Fincher was brought on to direct, Walker said New Line accidentally sent Fincher the head scene, and he refused to make the film without it.
\u00ab\u00a0And then they sent him the vastly rewritten, Jeremiah Chechik draft, which had a completely different ending and Fincher said, ‘No, I wouldn’t be interested in doing that,'\u00a0\u00bb Walker said.
Walker says he’s glad \u00ab\u00a0Se7en\u00a0\u00bb was early in his career, when he was working at Tower Records and had little clout. If he’d had more experience, he might have chosen to leave the film because of the proposed change.
The movie \u00ab\u00a0was optioned at the guild minimum,\u00a0\u00bb Walker told THR in an interview published Friday. \u00ab\u00a0Which was a fine living compared to Tower Records. It wasn’t ‘F– you money,’ obviously. But it was enough money for me to make the move from the east to the west and to get a Toyota. Not a Rolls. \u00a0\u00bb
That’s one way to get ahead.<\/p>\n