The original ending of Pretty Woman was fairly bleak

REUNITING for the 25th birthday of Pretty Woman, the cast has looked back on the film’s original script and the dark, not-so-happy ending that could have been.

AS fans celebrate the 25th birthday of Pretty Woman, screenwriter J.F. Lawton has looked back on the iconic film’s original script and the dark, not-so-happy ending that could have been.

Executive producer Laura Ziskin is often credited with changing the film’s ending with the addition of the famous line, “And she rescues him right back,” but she maintains that’s not exactly the way it happened.

“I didn’t want a movie whose message would be that some nice guy will come along and give you nice clothes and lots of money and make you happy,” Ziskin said in a 1991 People magazine article.

Lawton, a struggling screenwriter when he first wrote Pretty Woman (originally titled 3,000) in the late 1980s, actually penned a dark, gritty drama in an attempt to get a new gig. “I was a screenwriter who was trying to get a job, I was unemployed and I was working in post-production and I was trying to sell scripts, and I had been writing all of these ninja scripts and comedies, and I just couldn’t get any attention,” he told Vanity Fair.

Julia Roberts’ film career skyrocketed after her performance in Pretty Woman.

The hit 1990 romantic comedy, first pitched as a cautionary tale, featured Vivian as a drug addict who was eventually discarded by Edward.

“Richard’s character threw my character out of the car, threw the money on top of her and drove away and the credits rolled,” Roberts said of the movie’s ending before director Garry Marshall and Disney came on board.

Thankfully, test audiences wanted a Cinderella ending, and that’s exactly what they got.

Here’s how it ends:

Edward Lewis (played by Richard Gere) overcomes his fear of heights and scales Vivian Ward’s (played by Julia Roberts) fire escape to make a grand romantic gesture and win her back once and for all.

How it almost ended:

Vivian and her prostitute pal Kit are on a bus bound for Disneyland, with Kit anticipating a fun day financed by Vivian’s week with Edward, as Vivian “stares out emptily ahead.”

That’s bleak.

Vivian and Edward were originally not meant to end up together.

Roberts, now 47, was just 22 years old when she starred as prostitute Vivian Ward in the film that turned her into a Hollywood star. Gere, now 65, played wealthy businessman Edward Lewis, who hired Vivian to be his escort. The pair also starred together in Runaway Bride in 1999.

The adored cast reunited last week to celebrate Pretty Woman’s quarter-century mark.

Hector Elizondo, Laura San Giacomo, Garry Marshall, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere with Matt Lauer on the Today show.