The ending of David Fincher’s 1995 thriller ‘Seven’ shows Brad Pitt’s Detective Mills and Morgan Freeman’s Detective Somerset getting a mysterious box from the killer John Doe (played by Kevin Spacey). Inside, they find the severed head of Mills’ wife, Tracy (played by Gwyneth Paltrow).
“Like, I got in my contract when I did ‘Seven,’ having had a bad experience on a movie before where they edited out scenes I thought were vital, in ‘Seven’ I put it in my contract: The wife’s head stays in the box,” Pitt told GQ in a recent interview while discussing taking more control over his projects as he became more famous.
The actor continued, “So sure enough, when it comes time [to film the ending], they come and they go, ‘You know, he’d be much more heroic if he didn’t [shoot John Doe].’ And you go, ‘Yeah, he would. But he’s not.’ And then: ‘It’s too much with the wife. What if we put the dogs’ heads in? It should be the dogs’ heads.’ Nope.”
“I said, ‘I will do it on one condition — the head stays in the box. Put in the contract that the head stays in the box,'” Pitt told Entertainment Weekly in 2011.
He also added, “Actually, there was a second thing, too: ‘He’s got to shoot the killer in the end. He doesn’t do the ‘right’ thing, he does the thing of passion.’ Those two things are in the contract. Cut to: ‘Se7en’ has been put together, and they’ve tested it. They go, ‘You know, he would be much more heroic if he didn’t shoot John Doe — and it’s too unsettling with the head in the box. We think maybe if it was the dog’s head in the box …'”
‘Seven’ came out in 1995 and it follows Detective Somerset, who is close to retiring, and his new partner, Detective Mills, as they work to stop a serial killer committing murders based on the seven deadly sins.
