Maybe Ms. Marshall was killed to prevent the release of the Alternate Ending? Big Hollywood is trying to suppress it. The truth is out there.
“Local man finds famous movie ending HOLLYWOOD DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SEE!!!”
Click here.
I have a question I don’t think anyone else has asked. Wouldn’t an ending with young Josh meeting young Susan be even MORE magical and happy than the ending where young Josh simply comes back home?
And yet, so the story goes, that scene was actually shot, and then cut from the movie after test audience feedback. What kind of heartless asshole test audience would sit through a romantic comedy and say, “I liked the part where he danced on the keyboard, but not so much the ending where the boy and girl met again and lived happily ever after”???
Never mind…
I think you have the story wrong. Test audiences wanted them to meet cute as youngsters, but Marshall and her co-producer wouldn’t change the ending. She said, “this was the script that the studio bought, and if they were worried about the ending being bittersweet, they should have worried about it a few years earlier.”
Really, this alternate scene was NEVER SHOT.
I think kunilou meant, if people are truly remembering the alternate ending, that meant it had to have been filmed, and then screened for the test audience(s), who objected (irrationally), and then Marshall (or the studios) removed from the final print, then “lost” it somewhere all these years. And why would test audiences object to that ending?
Check out the alternate ending to What Dreams May Come, for example (included on the DVD). The ending not used is clearly bad, and changes the meaning of the rest of the movie. They were right to not have used it.
But this theoretical alternate ending to Big, how is that bad? I prefer the real bittersweet ending, but having the much talked about alternate wouldn’t destroy the movie, just make it a bit too happy, a bit too hollywood, but would it have been bad?
Exactly. Here’s what IMDB says
I’m not claiming that the alternate ending was a better ending, and I’m certainly not claiming that one single source is accurate. I’m simply “what if-ing.” Would a test audience that liked the first 103 minutes of the film really have objected to young Josh and young Susan meeting?
No need to “what if,” your question is exactly answered. After watching the movie, test audiences said they wanted a (non-filmed) ending where they meet as youngsters. The director did not comply.
(By the way, I call BS on a novelty book of lists with no cites. I trust the director herself knew what was filmed and what wasn’t.)
Yes, I think it would be a terrible ending, not serving the story at all well. The story that has been told is about Josh learning that even if he is not “big” the life to which he has returned is full of all the pleasures he needs. Susan too has gone from being a selfish career obsessive to helping Josh against her own urges. Both of these are undone by the additional scene.
Susan turning up also introduces lots of troubling thoughts. We’ve just recently seen how distraught Josh’s mother has been while he has been missing. What about Susan’s friends and family? Isn’t it a little stalkerish for a mature woman to disguise herself to chase down a young boy? Cynthia Benson. What about her?
Few more years and this thread have been around 1/2 my life.
I was 23 when I posted it.
I’m 40 now. 
Or, to look at it another way, this thread began less than 14 years after the movie was released, but it’s now been over 16 years since the thread started.
Anyone else remember the alternate ending to Penny Marshall?
So, a 23-year-old kid turns into a 40-year-old man.
Maybe you should get a consulting job at a company that sells stuff to 23-year-olds, you would probably have some good insights.
But I have no idea how things might turn out for you in the end, I can imagine a couple of different scenarios.
The one where she’s strangled by a VHS tape in New Zealand?
I think I deserve to come back as a kid again.
Hello, all. I’m here to throw yet more wood on this fire.
I found this thread after having a conversation with my coworker about Little, the new sequel to Big being filmed here in Atlanta right now. We were wondering how the plot would work for someone becoming a kid again, and I mentioned the final scene to Big that I very distinctly remember from when I watched it when I was 12 or 13, probably over broadcast television here in Atlanta:
Josh returns to school and a new girl is introduced to the class. She is given seat a bit behind and over from Josh, so that he has to look back to see her. Their eyes meet and she smiles at him. Fade to black. I didn’t remember the name she is given, but she strongly resembles the main love interest who watched him turn back into a kid and took him home. The implication was clear that this was the same person.
I found this thread in a Google search after realizing my memory was quite different from that of my coworker. I was not aware that any other ending to the movie existed until an hour ago.
I have a clear mental picture of the scene and it looks nothing like the scene people keep mentioning from 14 Going on 30. I’ve never seen that movie, nor do I recognize those characters in the slightest.
You should read the whole thread more carefully. There is no controversy to fuel - the alternative ending does not exist.
Your “clear mental picture” is wrong. No worries though, it happens to everybody about something.
One day, and that day may never come, this thread will be revised with a link to the actual alternative ending.
On that day, I shall morn.
I hope somebody will PM me.
You say you have read through this thread, but you have given no indication that you have read the many solid reasons why what you say couldn’t have happened the way you think you remember it.
You have thrown no new wood on this “fire”-you have merely misremembered.