Groundhog Day was originally supposed to end very differently

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Groundhog Day — though if you've not seen it yet, what are you doing?

Groundhog Day was originally slated to end very differently, and, honestly, it might be one of the best alternative endings we've ever heard.

Do you ever feel like you're living the same day over and over? You get up, shower, have breakfast, go to work and repeat for what seems like an eternity.

Well, Groundhog Day, the award-winning 1993 film directed by Harold Ramis, captures that feeling perfectly, but it initially had a very different ending.

The critically acclaimed film sees Phil Connors (Bill Murray) — a weatherman from Pennsylvania who gets stuck in a never-ending time loop on Groundhog Day.

For those not familiar, Groundhog Day falls on 2 February every year and originated in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

The celebration sees people wait for a groundhog to emerge from its den. If you can see the animal's shadow, winter will continue for six weeks. If there's no shadow, it means there'll be an early spring.

Columbia Pictures

While this sounds like a cute day to get stuck on, it's actually incredibly tedious and Phil has more than a few furious outbursts.

But, the film, thankfully, ends with him waking up on 3 February with Rita (Andie MacDowell) and they live happily ever after.

Still, that's not the original ending that was intended by Danny Rubin, who came up with the concept for the film.

Columbia Pictures

In Rubin's film, Phil and Rita have a slightly different journey. He said at a 2012 screening: "At the very end, he wakes up with Rita just like this.

"And then a second later, Rita is out of there. She can’t wait to leave. And it turns out that she’s been reliving February 3 over and over again.

"But the thing is it switches over to her story, at the very end as we’re realising that she’s been repeating that day over and over again, there’s a Rita voiceover.

"So the movie actually switches point of view from his voiceover to hers."

Although it went down as one of the best films of the 90s, as well as raking in a sweet $70.9 million (£61.4m) at the box office in the US, we were never actually treated to a sequel to the much-loved film.

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Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity, US News, Bill Murray, Viral

Shola Lee

Shola Lee began her journalism career while studying for her undergraduate degree at Queen Mary, University of London and Columbia University in New York. She has written for the Columbia Spectator, QM Global Bloggers, CUB Magazine, UniDays, and Warner Brothers' Wizarding World Digital. Recently, Shola took part in the 2021 BAFTA Crew and BBC New Creatives programme before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news, trending stories, and features.