For it’s used as a device to announce that Melanie under her old surname is dead, and Melanie under her new surname is alive. Turns out this incredibly dark turn was intended in the original script as a joke, though. Imagine if the credits had rolled at just that point. What happens next undermines that ending, though, as her husband seemingly carries the corpse of Melanie back into the wedding reception and announces that she’s dead. About as unconventional as you can get for the end of what’s effectively a fairy tale romantic comedy. The ending was included on the DVD of the film, and it’d be fair to say that at first, it’s something of a shock. Yet a different denouement was filmed that would have seen the pair embracing – only to be promptly struck by lightning. The film ultimately ends with Witherspoon’s character staying with her ex-husband, and the pair of them get married again. These numbers may not look so striking now, but they were, in the context of 17 years ago, really quite something.īut there’s still something of a case of what-if here. The film cost some $30m, and would gross $127m in the US alone, off the back of a massive $35m opening in September of that year. It – going as spoiler light as I can (spoilers start shortly) – follows a fairly predictable three act approach, ending roughly where most of us expected it to end.Īnd that’s just what the movie-going audience was looking for back in 2002. Witherspoon landed the lead role ahead of Charlize Theron, who was also considered, and the movie – which co-stars Josh Lucas and Patrick Dempsey – then plays out as something of a fairy tale. There, she became a socialite, but after nearly a decade away, she needs to come back home to secure a divorce from her husband. The film was directed by Andy Tennant, from a screenplay by C Jay Cox (with story credit going to Douglas J Epoch), and it tells the story of Melanie Smooter, a woman who left her home in Alabama for New York City.

And Sweet Home Alabama, on the surface a pretty frothy romantic comedy, would cement her place as a hugely successful leading actor.

By this stage in the early 2000s, she’d built a career quickly and impressively off a mix of very smart choices and very savvy commercial picks.

Reese Witherspoon was at the height of her box office powers when she decided to take the lead in Sweet Home Alabama. Spoiler warning: the ending of Sweet Home Alabama is directly discussed towards the end of this article. The Reese Witherspoon-headlined romcom Sweet Home Alabama nearly took a bit of a dark turn.

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