What’s in the box? What’s in the box?! We can tell you for one that whatever is in the box has absolutely nothing to do with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.
Se7en has one of the most twisted, iconic endings of all time — when Kevin Spacey comes out as John Doe and Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt find Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box. It’s so iconic, ’90s punk band The Lemonheads wrote a whole song about the reveal.
This ending was almost a whole lot different because Kevin Spacey was never supposed to be the infamous serial killer, and the part wasn’t supposed to have any dialogue. Originally, the role was offered to R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.
In a recent visit to Alec Badwin’s ‘Here’s The Thing’ podcast, Stipe admitted that he was offered the role but had to turn it down.
“I was offered the role of the psychopathic killer in the film ‘Se7en.’ They wanted someone very unexpected, and unfortunately my band was going on tour the same month they were filming. And it required nothing, all I had to do was run down some hallways and look scary. There was no dialogue. I would’ve loved doing it. I didn’t like the way that movie ended. They changed something at the end with Brad Pitt’s rather than Morgan Freeman’s character killing Kevin Spacey, which shouldn’t have happened. It didn’t make sense,” he said.
We’re definitely glad Spacey landed the project. Spacey took on a whole lot more than originally anticipated as production added to the script because. If you haven’t forgotten, John Doe does have dialogue. This dialogue adds so much to the movie that we couldn’t imagine what’d it be like without it. Spacey’s performance is iconic, and while Stipe would have nailed the look, he wasn’t really fond of the ending that made the movie what it is. It’s probably all for the best.
If you don’t remember, try to picture this with Michael Stipe. We can definitely sort of see it, but we think Kevin Spacey can do evil a whole lot better.
