Birdman ending explained: Iñárritu shot a different ending, and it ended on Johnny Depp

Birdman won four Oscars in 2015, including Best Picture, and its last minute is still the part people argue about. Iñárritu has never been shy about the ending he didn't use. He called it "a piece of [expletive]," and he told IndieWire he'd never say what it was: "It would be so embarrassing. It was bad."

His co-writer did say. Spoilers ahead.

What happens at the end of Birdman

On opening night, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) brings a real gun on stage for his play's final scene and shoots his own nose off. The audience gives him a standing ovation. The film then jumps to a hospital room, where Riggan is recovering.

He goes to the open window. His daughter, Sam (Emma Stone), comes back into the room, finds it empty and runs to the window. She looks down at the street, then up at the sky, and smiles.

The film never shows what she sees. That's the point, and it's the argument that has outlived the awards season.

The ending that got cut

Co-writer Alexander Dinelaris described the original on The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith in February 2015, during the podcast's annual sit-down with Oscar-nominated screenwriters, as transcribed by The Film Stage. It went like this:

• The shot: Riggan shoots himself on stage. Dinelaris put it plainly: "he shoots himself on the stage."
• The ovation: The camera swings around to the audience on its feet, the way cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki shot the whole film, and back to the stage.
• The talk show: Someone "like James Lipton or Charlie Rose" sits across from Keaton, reading him his tremendous review.
• The dressing room: The camera prowls backstage through the same halls to the dressing room, where Johnny Depp is putting on Riggan Thomson's wig, with a Pirates of the Caribbean 5 poster behind him.
• The voice: Jack Sparrow's voice says, "What the [expletive] are we doing here, mate?"

The idea, Dinelaris said, was "the satire of the endless loop." Riggan spent the film haunted by the superhero he used to play, and the last shot would have handed the same curse to the next star.

"We couldn't get Johnny Depp or even the poster."

— Alexander Dinelaris, co-writer

So it was never shot. The scene needed Depp in the chair and a Pirates poster on the wall, and the production got neither.

Don't miss: Pirates of the Caribbean did something to Keira Knightley that took years to undo

Why Iñárritu changed it

Iñárritu told The Playlist the switch happened partway through production. The film "had a different ending but in the middle of shooting, I knew it was a piece of [expletive]," he said. "I felt it and the film began to breathe by itself, and the characters began to grow." He rewrote it with Dinelaris and Nicolás Giacobone.

"Now I feel very good about the ending. It feels very fair."

— Alejandro G. Iñárritu, to The Playlist

The swap changes what Birdman is about. The Depp ending is a joke about Hollywood: the next franchise star, the next poster, the next voice in the mirror.

The hospital ending is about one family. The person left looking out the window isn't the next actor in line. It's Riggan's daughter.

Pirates of the Caribbean 5 did come out, in 2017, as Dead Men Tell No Tales. Depp never had to sit in Riggan's chair.

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