“A rider out of the night is bound for adventure!” The credits for the Zorro series in the late 1950s and still televised during these lines helped solidify the Zorro character in pop culture! Tonight, Arte presents The Mask of Zorro, the 1998 adventure film directed by Martin Campbell (who followed the success of GoldenEye), but did you know that the ending you saw wasn’t the ending that was originally shot?
At the end of the movie, as we know it, Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas) tells his little one about the adventures of his grandfather Don Diego de la Vega as Zorro! Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) reminds him that this is not exactly a good example for their son, then they kiss and Alejandro leaves the hacienda. Cut! We find him in his Zoro suit, performing the “Z” cult with his sword, in a trail of flames: END.
Except that director Martin Campbell, as he said, had a completely different ending planned Vulture :
I actually took a new ending. In the original version, after the mine explosion, all the prisoners, Zorro and Catherine were moving to the desert and Santa Ana arrived. There was a relationship between them: “I know what you did, you know what I did.” They were led out into the desert, and as the crowd advanced, we found two people kissing apart from the crowd: Catherine and Antonio.
And here it is:
This ending was very well received by the public in test screenings, but in the end “someone” Campbell tells us that he had the idea of repeating the beginning of the film, “When de la Vega arrives with the baby at the scene of his wife’s murder”. Campbell thought it was a great idea and shot the scene using the last day left in the shooting schedule. It was this plan that became the ending that you discovered this evening at Arte and that the public saw in the cinema.
With its new ending, the film was a box office success, grossing $250 million worldwide at the time, while catapulting Antonio Banderas to international (and not just European) stardom.
Already well established internationally, Martin Campbell never regretted making the film, even if he was surprised: “I believe Robert Rodriguez was the original director and Banderas already was. But somehow he left the project and they asked me if I was interested. I said no three times, then Steven Spielberg called me and basically convinced me. He.”
Source: Allocine
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
