If you did, you likely know how the film ends, with Joe (Jamie Foxx) returning to Earth after spending most of the film in "the Great Before." But as Soul directors Pete Docter and Kemp Powers and producer Dana Murray told Entertainment Tonight, the film originally had a different ending.
"We went back and forth on the ending up until the last screening," Murray explained. "For a long time, Joe did go to the Great Beyond."
"There was a lot of debating back and forth. But I think the more we saw him live his life and just thinking about his mother Libba, and all these different factors, it felt like the right ending, that he needed to be able to go enjoy his life in the way he wanted to. Because he'd learned so much throughout the film."
Powers also revealed that the team played around with multiple possible endings for the film.
"We have versions of the ending where Joe does not go back to his body, where he actually stays dead," he explained. "We have versions of the ending where you see Joe on Earth a year later."
Docter said that there were "camps" within the film's team that had differing opinions on how Soul should end. But they ultimately landed on the film's final cut. Ah, the magic of collaboration.
