Finch Director Reveals the Original Ending of the Movie and Why It Changed
138Warning: Spoilers are discussed in this interview
With Finch now streaming on AppleTV, I recently spoke with director Miguel Sapochnik about making the post-apocalyptic science-fiction drama starring Tom Hanks. If you haven’t seen the trailers, Finch takes place ten years after a solar flare has destroyed the ozone layer and left our planet dealing with extreme weather and ultraviolet radiation that makes sunlight deadly. One of the few survivors of the apocalypse is Finch (Hanks), a robotics engineer that has been living in an underground bunker with his dog, Goodyear. Realizing he only has so much time left, Finch has spent his final years building a robot (Caleb Landry Jones) to make sure his beloved canine companion will be cared for after he’s gone. But when a deadly storm approaches their location, the unlikely family must set out on a road trip to find a new place to live.
During the interview, Sapochnik talked about his long road with the project, why so many people love watching post-apocalyptic movies and shows, what it was like collaborating with Tom Hanks, how the film doesn’t have anyone delivering exposition dumps, the way technology has helped whim direct, the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon (he’s a showrunner and directing some episodes), and more.
However, for me, the highlight of the interview was Sapochnik revealing Finch originally had a much different ending. In the version that was released, the film ends with Jeff and Goodyear on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The bridge is overgrown with plants and vines, filled with messages from people for their loved ones. It’s clear this part of the world isn’t dealing with the same ultraviolet radiation and people can survive. While we are sad Finch has died, we’re left with the hope Jeff and Goodyear might find others and thrive.
According to Sapochnik, the original ending did have Jeff and Goodyear encountering people, and they were not the monsters Finch warned them about. And it wasn’t a small scene that was cut. Sapochnik told me, “It could have been another third of a movie, probably.”
So you’re probably wondering why a huge section of Finch was removed. Sapochnik said, “it was a bigger story than we had time to tell in the time we had left to tell it.” The Finch run time is two hours and it sounds like to open the door to all this story would have required at least thirty minutes. Or more.
Here’s exactly how Sapochnik explained his reasons (which you can also watch around the 11:43 mark in the player above)
“We shot a lot. There is a whole section that ended up on the cutting room floor that was about Jeff finally coming into contact with human beings and how they were not what he expected and certainly not what his father, Finch, had prepared him for. But when we got to post, we were in the edit, there was a point where I realized that I knew we had reached the end of the movie but we still had more story to tell. I tried as much as I could to see if we could accommodate it, but it was a bigger story than we had time to tell in the time we had left to tell it. At some point we just had to make a choice. To me, I believe the notion of kill your darlings. I loved it. I really liked what we did. It had great actors in it. It had Samira Wiley, it had my wife Alexis Raben, we had Skeet Ulrich, we had a load of people in it. And it was really good. It wasn’t the right ending for this chapter of this story. We had to let it go.”
While I don’t know if the footage is finished or in a very rough state, I’d love to see it. Maybe one day Apple will release it, or it’ll end up on the Blu-ray. Until then you can watch the full interview in the player above and below is a list of exactly what we talked about.
Miguel Sapochnik
If he could get the financing to make anything he wants what would he make and why?
How he wrote a time travel movie script during the filming of Game of Thrones Battle of the Bastards.
Why do people love watching end of the world movies and TV shows?
How many think about what would happen if they were the last person alive.
How did the movie happen for him?
What was it like the night before he was going to meet Tom Hanks for the first time?
What was it like working with Hanks on set?
How the film doesn’t have any exposition dumps.
Did he have a much longer cut of the film?
How they originally had a different ending which involved the robot and dog encountering humans and how they were different than what they expected.
He explains why they ultimately removed it.
What did he learn making Game of Thrones that he brought with him to the prequel series House of the Dragon?
How has technology helped him when directing?
#MiguelSapochnik #Finch #TomHanks
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