‘Get Out’ Alternate Ending Almost Ruined One of the Best Movie Moments of 2017
Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers for Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.”
Jordan Peele’s horror hit “Get Out” just got even scarier. An alternate ending that will be included on the film’s Blu-ray and DVD release reveals that the filmmakers considered finishing the story in a drastically different way, one that would have ruined one of the best movies of 2017 so far.
Here’s what goes down in the alternate version.
After Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) strangles Rose (Allison Williams) in the driveway to her parents’ house, the red and blue flashing lights that appear turn out not to be his best friend Rod (LilRel Howery) in the TSA car, but local police officers instead. They immediately apprehend Chris, who has the blood of the Armitage family all over his body — not an easily explainable situation.
Cut to a visitation room in prison where Rod visits Chris, who is wearing a prisoner’s orange jumpsuit. Surely all of Rose’s former boyfriends who went missing could help prove that Chris was acting in self-defense, right? Wrong. Rod explains that the Armitage house burned down, so Chris’ only chance is naming some of Rose’s exes, but he can’t remember them. Chris suggests he doesn’t care about being wrongfully imprisoned, however, saying, “I’m good. I stopped it.”
Audiences would not have been “good” with that ending, however. The best thing about the real ending is how everyone expected the car that pulls up in the Armitage driveway to be the cops, only to reveal — thank god — that Rod had come to rescue Chris himself. It’s an ingenious bait-and-switch that boldly speaks to how normalized the wrongful incarceration of African Americans has become in this country.
When you see the police lights approach in the original ending, you’re led to believe the alternate ending is going to play out, and when it doesn’t it’s both a relief and a wake-up call to how dangerous that preconceived thought is. To have our hero end up in shackles after miraculously escaping the wrath of the Armitages would have been worse than tragic. Thankfully, Peele and his collaborators knew that.
“Get Out” has taken in nearly $215 million at the worldwide box office on a budget of roughly $5 million. The film comes out on Blu-ray and DVD on May 23.
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