Pretty Woman is up there as one of the all-time greatest rom-coms. But it turns out it was never intended to be.
In the movie we all know and love, Julia Roberts plays the prostitute with the heart of gold who falls in love with Richard Gere’s rich businessman and they end up living happily ever after.
But former Disney studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg reveals the original script wasn’t quite so rosy.
“I can’t tell you how much time was spent debating,” Katzenberg said during a Q&A session In New York City last week.
“As a script, Pretty Woman was an R-rated movie about a hooker on Hollywood Boulevard. By the way, in the original version — it’s pretty dark — I think she died of an overdose.”
Unsurprisingly, Disney execs were too keen on the grim ending, and so changes were made.
“Convincing [people] that we should make that at the Walt Disney Co., and that it’s a fairy tale and princess movie, a lot of people had a hard time seeing it,” he said. “But, as they say, the rest is history.”
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