9 Movies That Completely Changed With Reshoots

2) Payback

There was a time, back before 2006, when the actor started going off the rails and ranting about how the Jews of the world had ruined his life, that Mel Gibson being seen as too unsympathetic was considered a real issue by studios. It was such an issue that Brian Helgeland’s noir-ish, 1999 crime thriller Payback, starring Gibson as a callous thief named Porter, was taken out of the director’s hands and severely softened for audiences.

Reshoots (courtesy of the film’s production designer) and a voiceover were added to make Porter “more accessible.” A less ambiguous new ending was shot, Kris Kristofferson came on board as a villain entirely absent from Helgeland’s cut, and less grisly scenes replaced those in which Porter beats his wife and pokes the eyeballs from a goon’s head. Overall, a third of the movie was re-worked.