The Butterfly Effect

Director's cut ending

With his brain terribly damaged and aware that he is committed to a psychiatric facility where he will lose access to his time travel ability, Evan makes a desperate attempt to change the timeline by watching a family video, which shows his mother just before she was about to give birth to him. He travels back to that moment and strangles himself in the womb with his umbilical cord so as to prevent the multi-generational curse from continuing, consistent with an added scene where a psychic palm reader tells Evan "you have no lifeline" and that he does "not belong to this world". Kayleigh is then seen as a child in the new timeline, having chosen to live with her mother instead of her father, and a montage suggests that the lives of the other childhood characters have become loving and less tragic.

Development

After realizing how different his life would be if he could alter his past and prevent a traumatic experience from happening, Eric Bress, and his co-writing partner J. Mackye Gruber, penned The Blackouts in 1998.^[6][7] The pair's first draft, which included "a 6-year-old running around shooting cops in the head", was deemed to dark for general audiences by their manager and heavily contrasted with their previous, Coen Brothers-inspired spec scripts.^[8][9] Bress and Gruber put The Blackouts on ice for two years until producers J.C. Spink and Chris Bender requested to read the script.^[10] Haunted by the script's ending, where the main protagonist strangling himself inside his mother's womb, Bender and Spink signed the writers the next day and oversaw subsequent revisions; the first of which delved too deep into "lighthearted rom-com territory" and a follow-up that returned to the initial draft's bleak tone.^[6]

Every studio that was presented Bress and Gruber's screenplay was hesitant to produce the film due to its dark subject material, coupled with the pair's insistence on directing the project.^[11][12] Richard Brener, an executive at New Line Cinema, was impressed by the duo and enlisted them to draft Final Destination 2.^[13] When Final Destination 2 got off the ground with David R. Ellis in the director's chair, New Line circled back to The Blackouts and gave Bress and Gruber the go-ahead to direct the film.^[14]

Pre-production

The studio considered several high-profile actors, including Tobey Maguire, for the lead role while Bress and Gruber were eyeing a "virtual unknown". When the unnamed actor suddenly gained notability, Bress and Gruber lost contact with them.^[15] Bress and Gruber met with Ashton Kutcher upon suggestion from the studio and were impressed with the his insights, casting him as Evan Treborn shortly thereafter.^[14] By March 2002, the film was re-titled The Butterfly Effect, while Amy Smart, William Lee Scott, and Elden Henson were in talks for supporting roles.^[16] The remaining supporting cast was rounded out by Melora Walters, Eric Stoltz, Ethan Suplee, and Logan Lerman.

Filming

Production commenced on May 27, 2002 in Vancouver with Matthew Leonetti serving as cinematographer and lasted until June.^[16][17] Kutcher served as an executive producer on the film.^[18] The actor worked closely with John Patrick Amedori, who plays 13 year old Evan, to ensure consistency across their performances and also studied dissociative disorders in preparation for his role.^[19]

As the film's ending was gearing up to be shot, the studio and Bender got cold feet and pushed for a more hopeful conclusion. They allowed the ending to be filmed as originally planned, with a two week old infant propped on a lazy Susan, but also commissioned three alternative endings despite the resistance of the directors, Leonetti, and Kutcher.^[6]

Post-production

During the editing process, Bress and Gruber realized their dark sense of humor did not translate to screen. One segment, in which Evan wakes up as a bilateral amputee, was meant to be comedic, but test audiences were "so engrossed in the story they would take things more seriously" than the directors intended. Studio notes also prompted the filmmakers to drop a "distressing" shot of a dummy burning up on the pavement and a scene where Kutcher's character is sexually assaulted.^[7][20]

Of the four endings filmed, the studio's preferred was a "meet cute" between older Evan and Kayleigh. However, test audiences reacted strongly towards the ending where Evan travels back to his childhood to sever ties with Kayleigh completely. The audience-favored ending was selected by studio, while the initial finale was never screened.^[6] Bress and Gruber felt betrayed by the studio's decision, though eventually came around on the chosen conclusion.^[7][21] Bender believed the theatrical cut's ending remained true to the filmmaker's story, telling The Ringer, "It was a choice he made. It just wasn't as dark of a choice.”^[6]

Theatrical

The Butterfly Effect premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 2004.^[22] The film received a wide theatrical release by New Line Cinema on January 23, 2004.

Home media

The film was released on both VHS, as well as DVD as the Infinifilm edition on July 6, 2004. This edition was released with the 113 minute theatrical cut as well as the director's cut, which runs seven minutes longer. The DVD also includes two documentaries ("The Science and Psychology of the Chaos Theory" and "The History and Allure of Time Travel"), a trivia subtitle track, filmmaker commentary by directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, deleted and alternative scenes, and a short feature called "The Creative Process" among other things.^{[citation needed]} A blu-ray containing the director's cut was released by Warner Brothers in July 2012.^{[citation needed]}

Novelization

British author James Swallow penned a novelization of The Butterfly Effect on December 30, 2003, published by Black Flame.^[25] Swallow incorporated scenes that were dropped in the final edit of the film and included "moments to tie up a couple of loose threads that the movie couldn't get to". The novel has since gone out of print following the closure of Black Flame.^[26]

Box office

The Butterfly Effect opened alongside Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!. The film reached the top spot of the box office upon its opening weekend, grossing $17,100,000, displacing Along Came Polly to second place.^[1][27] David Tuckerman of New Line Cinema estimated that despite the film's negative reception, audiences were drawn to see Kutcher in a serious role.^[28][29] In its second weekend, the film placed second behind You Got Served and grossed $9,900,000.^[30] By the end of its theatrical run in May 2004, The Butterfly Effect earned $57,938,693 domestically and $96,693,728 worldwide.^[1]

Critical reception

Critical reception for The Butterfly Effect was generally poor.^[3][4][5] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 34% approval rating based on 169 reviews; the rating average is 4.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "The premise is intriguing, but it's placed in the service of an overwrought and tasteless thriller."^[3] On Metacritic, another review aggregator, it has a score of 30 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".^[4] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.^[31]

Roger Ebert wrote that he "enjoyed The Butterfly Effect, up to a point" and that the "plot provides a showcase for acting talent, since the actors have to play characters who go through wild swings." However, Ebert said that the scientific notion of the butterfly effect is used inconsistently: Evan's changes should have wider reverberations.^[32] Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called it a "metaphysical mess", criticizing the film's mechanics for being "fuzzy at best and just plain sloppy the rest of the time".^[33] Mike Clark of USA Today also gave the film a negative review, stating, "Normally, such a premise comes off as either intriguing or silly, but the morbid subplots (there's prison sex, too) prevent Effect from becoming the unintentional howler it might otherwise be."^[34] Additionally, Ty Burr of The Boston Globe went as far as saying, "whatever train-wreck pleasures you might locate here are spoiled by the vile acts the characters commit."^[35]

Matt Soergel of The Florida Times-Union rated it three stars out of four, writing, "The Butterfly Effect is preposterous, feverish, creepy and stars Ashton Kutcher in a dramatic role. It's a blast... a solidly entertaining B-movie. It's even quite funny at times..."^[36] The Miami Herald said, "The Butterfly Effect is better than you might expect despite its awkward, slow beginning, drawing you in gradually and paying off in surprisingly effective and bittersweet ways," and added that Kutcher is "appealing and believable... The Butterfly Effect sticks to its rules fairly well... overall the film is consistent in its flights of fancy."^[37] The Worcester Telegram & Gazette praised it as "a disturbing film" and "the first really interesting film of 2004," adding that Kutcher "carries it off":

Written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, who co-wrote Final Destination 2, this is much more intelligent than their earlier film would suggest... The Butterfly Effect may be a little too unconventional to succeed with a mass audience, but filmgoers claiming they want 'something different' from Hollywood ought to take note.^[38]

In a retrospective, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote that critics, including himself, were too harsh on the film at the time of its release. Describing the film as having been patronized, Bradshaw cited critical disdain for Kutcher as making the film uncool to like.^[5]

Accolades