Kubrick's estate seems open to opening the archives to the general public.

Will we ever seen the original ending to The Shining?

Or has it been destroyed?

I'm sure Warner has it in their archives.

I never knew there was an "original ending." and i considered myself a Kubrick fanatic...

There was an ending that was released when the film came out. After a very short while, Kubrick pulled that print and had Warners release the film without the additional scene.

Kubrick had a tendency to destroy footage that he didn't want to see the light of day.

I wonder if it survived.

what was the ending?

It's funny the deleted ending is being mentioned; I just wrote an essay on The Shining for my film class.

During my research, I came across this blog that explains the deleted epilogue in detail, and even has some pictures to boot!

http://pineapples101.blogspot.com/20...ed-scenes.html

That's very, very interesting.

According to that there should be a copy of the longer cut fairly readily available. However, I've never seen one or heard of one. You'd think that you could simply type in Shining Original ending into You Tube and see the cut. If the BBC had it, you'd think it would be reasonbily easy to find.

Thanks again for that link. Regardless of if it's available or not. That was very interesting.

Very good! I knew about the cut hospital scene but didn't know how it was originally edited into the film. That was a clear explanation of how the cut scene fit into the movie.

(But I still prefer the current version - that cut scene seems a bit too anti-climatic. It would be a nice bonus feature on some future release, though, if the footage still exists.)

In the original ending Shelley Duvall marries Michael Duvall and they take over the leadership of the Corleone family after Michael Corleone has a terrible fishing "accident" on Lake Tahoe.

P.S. I live in Tahoe, so I know what I'm talking about!

She should have married Robert Duvall instead.

Good point. Guess I don't know what I'm talking about afterall.

Telly...have you seen any of the footage anywhere? Has anyone reporter that it still exists?

You're conflating two different cuts here. The cut with the original ending is a 155-odd-minute cut that AFAIK hasn't been seen anywhere since Kubrick pulled it three days after release. The "longer cut" you're referring to is the 145-minute American version, which is very easy to find, since it's the only one that's ever been released on video in the U.S. Other countries got a shortened 120-minute version (which runs 115 minutes with PAL speedup), but the American version has been aired on UK television (and I believe it was released on laserdisc in Japan).

As Dan just said, nobody has seen it since it's original theatrical release in 1980. My guess is that it's lost forever. However if it were found and put on DVD, it would probably be a first day purchase for me

I bet if they released a DVD of just the cut ending and nothing else, it would probably still sell thousands of units to Kubrick-fans and movie-buffs.

Yep. And that goes for the also cut soon-after-original-release 19-minutes from 2001: A Space Odyssey too!

Interesting. I had no idea. It would be neat to see this footage but I would not want it re-instated into the film for obvious reasons.

Here's hoping for some new bonus materials for a future release!