Think you know the ending? Matt Damon’s The Martian once ended differently

You probably remember The Martian as a big old crowd-pleaser when it landed in cinemas—absolutely raked in the cash and got critics on side too. Ridley Scott at the helm, Matt Damon growing spuds on Mars, and a genuinely strong supporting cast; it just worked. And before any of that made it on screen, there was, of course, Andy Weir's bestselling novel behind it all.

Now, the version we got in cinemas feels spot on, doesn't it? But as it turns out, things very nearly wrapped up in a completely different way. Producer Simon Kinberg just let slip, speaking at Collider's Producers on Producing panel at SDCC 2026, that the original ending was swapped out late in the game—literally after test screenings—and, well, it probably would have left audiences feeling a bit short-changed if Stan Lee's cameo was the true ending.

In Kinberg's words from the SDCC panel: "The original ending of the movie as shot and tested didn't have that speech in it. Matt sees a little leaf on the ground and gets up and heads to class, and the audience felt like they needed closure with the character, and I think maybe needed to get a sense of why they had been on this journey. It's an exciting enough movie, obviously, and there's so many wonderful things about it, but what's the larger lesson? A big part of our job as producers is sometimes to convince really formidable – whether they're formidable because they have an amazing filmography or they're formidable just because that's their personality – filmmakers to do things against their will for the benefit of the movie."

An Ending That Nearly Wasn't

So, originally, Matt Damon's Mark Watney would have returned to Earth, spotted a sprig of green poking out from the ground, and then just quietly strolled off towards a university building, leaving it there. No inspiring lecture, no closure; just a leaf and a man, which—let's be honest—would have been a real anticlimax after everything he's put himself (and the audience) through. Instead, the team shot an extra scene where Damon is now teaching astronaut trainees about survival, basically tying a neat bow on his journey and giving everyone a proper coda.

Reshoots Aren't Always a Red Flag

This is one of those cases where a classic bit of movie tinkering—'reshoots', as they say—genuinely improved things. According to Kinberg, the prevailing myth in the industry is that if a movie needs reshoots, it's probably in trouble. He points out that sometimes, that's absolutely not the case; in fact, it can mean the filmmakers actually have the time and resources to make sure they've nailed every beat. He even noted that for low-budget productions, it's not as expensive as people imagine to slot in a few extra days shooting if it makes the story work better.

Kinberg went on to explain the industry mindset: "I think that one of the things I would say is a slight misconception is that reshoots mean that a movie's in trouble or it's not good. Sometimes that's true, and sometimes movies that don't have reshoots are in trouble and not good. But I do think that if you have the luxury of having time to reshoot, and I think that luxury is probably true for the cheapest movies and the most expensive movies, because it's cheap to reshoot if it's a cheap crew and cast to get together."

With everything said and done, the film ended up pulling in more than $630 million worldwide and bagged itself multiple nominations, including nods from the Oscars and the Golden Globes. Whatever landed on the cutting room floor, you can't really argue with those results.

The Martian's box office haul topped $630 million worldwide.