Drew Barrymore Reveals the Original Ending of '50 First Dates'

The romantic comedy 50 First Datesstarring Drew Barrymore y Adam Sandlercelebrates its 20th anniversary of launch this year.

And now, two decades later we know that the happy ending between Lucy (Barrymore) and Henry (Sandler), was not the original ending of the 2004 rom-com. Barrymore surprised her audience on her daytime talk show, The Drew Barrymore Showrevealing the original ending, whose plot was not set in Hawaii, but in Seattle.

This is what Barrymore said (via The Drew Barrymore Show):

“Something that always stays in my mind is the original ending of 50 First Kissesas it was called at the time. Yes, it was a drama set in Seattle. The original ending was her saying: 'You should go and live your life, because this is no life here.' And he walks away, as he does, and comes back and walks into the restaurant and sits down and says: 'Hi, I'm Henry'. And the movie ends.”

Barrymore's co-host Ross Matthews thanked her for sharing the original ending, saying: “Honestly, I can only say: thank you. Thank you for changing it.”

As if it were the first timethe title by which it is known in this market, revolves around the love story between marine veterinarian Henry (Sandler) and art teacher Lucy (Barrymore), who suffers from anterograde amnesia. Lucy's memory resets at the beginning of each day, so she never remembers falling in love with Henry. The film version of the movie ends with the two together as they reunite with their daughter on a boat in Alaska, where Henry is working.

The film was directed by Peter Segal and written by George Wing.

The cast also included Rob Schneider, Sean Astin, Dan Aykroyd, Lusia Strus, Amy Hill, and Maya Rudolph.

Segal shared with EW in 2019 an alternate ending that had been considered, in which Lucy woke up each day to a mural on the ceiling above her bed that told the story of her accident and her life:

“It was a mural she painted that, unlike the mural in her father’s garage, which was painted over every day so she had a blank canvas to work on, this one was left up by Henry so that when she woke up in the morning she could see a pictorial timeline of her last day to reintroduce her to.”

“So when she finished sweeping her eyes from left to right, she would land on Henry, and unlike earlier in the movie, when she would wake up in bed with him and he would be a stranger again and she would scream and have a reaction, it was a way of reintroducing her into his life again.”