Fast-forward to 1990, and the rewards of keeping the audience happy, happy, happy are perfectly demonstrated by the case of Pretty Woman. In its original inception, this feel-good hit (which took close to half a billion dollars in cinemas worldwide on a production budget of $14 million) was a rather darker tale of drugs and prostitution. J.F. Lawton’s screenplay was written under the working title 3000 – the amount of money rich businessman Edward Lewis pays hooker Vivian Ward to pose as his girlfriend for a week – and ended with the couple going their separate ways, each back to their own very different worlds.

      Rising star Julia Roberts was famously unimpressed by Lawton’s original script. According to her, it was ‘a really dark and depressing, horrible, terrible story about two horrible people, and my character was this drug addict, a bad-tempered, foulmouthed, ill-humored, poorly educated hooker who had this weeklong experience with a foulmouthed, ill-tempered, bad-humored, very wealthy, handsome but horrible man, and it was just a grisly, ugly story about these two people.’

      Sounds like fun, huh?

      It was movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg who insisted that Lawton’s script be rewritten as a romantic comedy, a modern retelling of the Pygmalion myth which had inspired George Bernard Shaw’s play, and in turn the hit musical (both stage and screen) My Fair Lady (1964). Out-takes from the shoot suggest that Vivian’s character was sweetened ever further in the edit (a scene in which she tells Edward, ‘I could just pop ya good and be on my way’ hit the floor), producer Laura Ziskin pushing for both protagonists to be made more sympathetic, more likeable, more . . . fun! As for the ending, while Lawton had written a bittersweet pay-off which found Vivian taking the bus to Disneyland with her sex-worker best friend, the laws of profitability demanded something altogether more upbeat. Thus, the movie now ends with Richard Gere climbing up a fire escape (significantly overcoming his fear of heights – see ‘Phobias’, p.84) to wrap Vivian in his arms and sweep her off to a new life of wealth, privilege and everlasting love.

      This fairy-tale ending makes no dramatic sense whatsoever, but audiences swooned to its ‘Love Conquers All’ message, turning the movie into a global phenomenon. In the wake of Pretty Woman’s extraordinary box office success, studios suddenly started throwing money at the romcom genre in the hope of repeating its magical winning formula. Indeed, it’s arguable that the resurgence of romcoms as one of the most reliably lucrative staples of modern cinema was down to Pretty Woman – and its happy, sappy ending.

      Other examples of producers wanting to leave the audience smiling are rather more subtle. In 1997, British director Iain Softley filmed a brilliant adaptation of Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove which drew critical plaudits for its strong performances, insightful screenwriting and outstanding production values. The film follows an increasingly embittered early twentieth-century love triangle between the scheming Kate Croy (Helena Bonham Carter), the terminally ill Milly Theale (Alison Elliott) and the morally wavering Merton Densher (Linus Roache). Holidaying together in a ravishingly picturesque Venice, Kate persuades long-time suitor Merton to seduce Milly in order to secure a place in her will. But when left alone with the goodhearted Milly, Merton finds his affections unexpectedly engaged. By the time Kate and Merton finally get what they thought they wanted, their dreams have melted into dust.

      Intelligently scripted by Hossein Amini, Softley’s film finished on a boldly nihilistic note: a scene of lovemaking notable for its sense of desperation and darkness, a daring and provocative finale to a richly insightful adaptation. Miramax mainstay Harvey Weinstein loved the film, and thought it had Oscar potential. But he was also anxious about the whole ‘desperation and darkness’ thing – particularly since it was the film’s parting shot. Working on the basis that audiences leaving a theatre can only remember the very last thing they saw (a maxim which has proved surprisingly enduring in Hollywood), Weinstein thought that it would be a good idea to remind viewers what a lovely, scenic time they had had in Venice before everything turned to moral torpor and desolation back in Blighty; to get them talking about the ravishing costumes and eye-catchingly romantic settings which he believed to be one of the film’s major selling points.

      Thus, Hands-on Harvey ‘suggested’ to Softley that instead of the final fade to black which currently ended his movie, the screen should return once more to an image of Venice, leaving the audience with a vision of the beautiful Milly in a shimmering gondola while an out-of-context voice-over spoke of love from beyond the grave. Softley resisted, knowing that such a coda was hardly in keeping with his carefully constructed vision. But Weinstein pushed the matter, insisting that unless moviegoers left the theatre with thoughts of upbeat romance (rather than downbeat moral squalor) the all-important ‘word of mouth’ would suffer. Eventually, Softley relented and devised a way of including the Venetian footage without spoiling his otherwise flawless film. Duly appeased, Weinstein threw his far-from-inconsiderable weight behind The Wings of the Dove, which went on to bag four Oscar nominations and five BAFTA nods.

      Of course, the problem with artificially enhancing a film’s happy-quotient is that, like antidepressants, the effects can be short lived. Would Love Story (1970) have stood the weepy test of time if Ali McGraw’s Jenny had been miraculously cured of her illness at the end? Would teenage girls have flocked to see Titanic (1997) time and time again if Kate Winslet’s Rose had found a piece of wood big enough for two, and Leo hadn’t sunk like a stone to the bottom of the ocean? Would Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) have achieved its classic status if our heroes had managed to give the Bolivians the slip? (In fact, the famous freeze-frame ending of George Roy Hill’s much-loved Western was already a concession to positivity, replacing the brutal, bloody death scenes which