'Gone Girl': What the movie's writer and director say about the film's ending

How will the movie version of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel “Gone Girl” end?

Fans of the book know that the ending in the book is shocking. (You’ll get no spoilers here.) And so readers were intrigued when the movie’s director David Fincher recounted actor Ben Affleck’s surprise over the ending of Flynn's script in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. (In the movie, Affleck stars as Nick Dunne, who comes under suspicion when his wife Amy, portrayed by Rosamund Pike, disappears.)

“He would say, ‘This is a whole new third act!’” Fincher remembered. “’She literally threw that third act out and started from scratch.’”

However, it turns out the ending may not be so different after all. New York Times reporter Cara Buckley wrote in a recent article about the movie that she has seen the finished product and that the movie “hews closely to the book.” Flynn herself had participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session after Fincher made the “whole new third act” comment to EW.

“Those reports have been greatly exaggerated!” Flynn wrote in response to a question about “changing the movie up a little when compared to the book.” “Of course, the script has to be different from the book in some ways – you have to find a way to externalize all those internal thoughts and you have to do more with less room and you just don't have room for everything. But the mood, tone and spirit of the book are very much intact.”

Fincher himself discussed his original comments in a later interview with EW, saying that what changes in the ending is “nothing and everything” and that the revisions are “changing the bone structure and the muscles and the skin.” He said he believes the film is “exactly what I think Gillian always intended.”