WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the plot and ending of Soul.
Chances are you’ve watched Pixar’s latest movie Soul the weekend. (If not, it’s now on Disney +.)
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If you did, you probably know how the movie ends – with Joe (Jamie Foxx) returning to Earth after spending most of the movie in ‘The Great Before’. But if Soul directors Pete Docter and Kemp Powers and producer Dana Murray told Entertainment Tonight that the film originally had a different ending.
Disney + / thanks to Everett Collection
“We went back and forth with the ending to the last show,” Murray explained. “Joe went to The Great Beyond a long time ago.”
Disney + / thanks to Everett Collection
‘There have been a lot of debates back and forth, but I think the more we have seen him live his life and just think of his mother, Libba, and all these different factors, it feels like the right end, that he should be able to to enjoy his life the way he wanted to, because he learned so much throughout the film. ‘
Disney + / thanks to Everett Collection
Powers also revealed that the team played with plural possible endings for the film.
Disney + / thanks to Everett Collection
“We have versions of the ending where Joe does not go back to his body, where he actually stays dead,” he explained. “We have versions of the ending where you see Joe on earth a year later.”
Disney + / thanks to Everett Collection
According to Docter, there were ‘camps’ within the team of the film that had different opinions on how Soul must end – but eventually they end up on the final cut of the film. Ah, the magic of collaboration.
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