“The Lost Boys” Had an Alternate Ending?
Long before the MCU made mid- and post-credits sequences the norm, Joel Schumacher’s comedy horror The Lost Boys planned to have one.
The 1987 vampire movie starring Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric was originally intended to have an additional sting that would add a cheeky bonus for the audiences. What’s more, at one point this planned sting was actually going to be the end of the movie.
A new book giving an in depth retrospective on the movie – Lost in the Shadows: The Story of The Lost Boys by Paul Davis – reveals that this was one of several major changes.
Davis explains:
“The screenplay for LOST BOYS (its original title – the ‘The’ was added in marketing), went through a magnitude of changes between the April 1986 ‘green light’ draft and the May 27th shooting draft. Alex Winter’s vampire, Marko, originally joined the rest of the boys in the siege on Grandpa’s house (only to be killed by Corey Haim’s character Sam, by stuffing garlic into his mouth), and Star was originally going to kill David (Kiefer Sutherland).
“Even once they made the changes in the shooting draft, Joel Schumacher admitted to me that both he, and screenwriter Jeff Boam, felt they didn’t have a satisfactory ending to the movie, and were scrambling to come up with something better during production. For example, in no draft of the script does Michael (Jason Patric) turn into a vampire – something that Patric was not thrilled about when informed three quarters of the way through that he would be hitting the make-up chair.
“One huge change between the two drafts, however, was the actual end to the movie itself. Grandpa’s famous line about ‘…all the damn vampires’ was always there, but in the April draft, we then returned to the cave, where a new group of teenagers (including Surf Nazis, and Max’s video store assistant Maria – played by Kelly Jo Minter) crawl into the small tunnel where the Lost Boys slept. As they’re doing so, the camera pushed in on a mural from the turn of the century, depicting Max on the boardwalk.
“When it came to the May shooting script, Schumacher realised that Grandpa’s iconic line was the real end of the movie – and so the return to the cave was placed on the last page of the screenplay as ‘Possible End Credits Over’ scene – very much like Skeletor declaring he’d ‘be back’ at the end of Masters of the Universe. This version, however, dropped the idea of new ‘lost boys’ entering the cave and focused on Max in the mural. Regardless, the mural was never made by the art department, and thus, never filmed.”
Here’s how the script read:
INT. LOBBY/CAVE – NIGHT
Deserted, the CAMERA PROWLS through the Rock ‘n’ Roll ruins.
Eventually the CAMERA pushes toward the old mural painted on the lobby wall. The mural depicts a typical day on the boardwalk in the year 1900.
CAMERA MOVES CLOVER AND CLOSER TO THE MURAL
And HOLD TIGHT on one painting figure in particular. A man in a straw hat. He’s grinning broadly… and he’s most definitely Max. He’s talking to a group of young men.
So head vampire overlord Max has been around for centuries grooming different groups of Lost Boys. It’s a cool idea but according to Production Designer Bo Welch and Art Director Tom Duffield, the sequence never got past the discussion stage – and certainly the mural was never painted.
“I can 100% guarantee that not only was it not shot, but we didn’t even get close to painting the mural for that,” said Duffield.
“So it was never a priority,” Welch confirms. “I think the mural ended up being part of the 35% budget cut that we endured from the studio, so it never got beyond the discussion stage. I don’t think anyone would disagree that Grandpa’s line is the perfect end to the movie, but I think the mural would have been pretty cool after the credits.”
Lost in the Shadows: The Story of The Lost Boys is currently completely sold out but keep an eye on Paul Davis’ twitter feed @kesslerboy for updates on further availability and future projects.
