See Some Cool, Unused Versions of Hollywood's Most Iconic Movie Posters

By Mike Bracken May 22, 2013

One of the best parts about working at a movie theater in my youth (aside from free movies and not having to be at work before noon) was raiding the poster room for one-sheets and banners. I’ve always loved movie posters – pretty much from the first time I saw a Jaws one-sheet as a kid. There’s just something magical about a great poster, and we’ve certainly seen a lot of them over the years.

However, it shouldn’t be too surprising to learn that even the best movie posters of all time were just one of several potential options a marketing department had come up with. Any of our favorite iconic posters could have easily been passed over for other options. In some cases, this would have been a real tragedy – I mean, who can imagine a film like The Exorcist with a different image on the poster? That doesn’t make it any less fascinating to look at the other options and imagine what might have been.

Website Daybees has a fascinating feature currently online that looks at a few of Hollywood’s most iconic poster images and shares some of the early alternatives. If you love film posters and marketing, you’ll certainly want to peruse the entire gallery – but we’re sharing a few of our favorites here to whet your appetite. One thing we've learned here: for all the complaining about how Hollywood often gets things wrong, they made the right choice on pretty much every single one of these pieces of artwork.

A Clockwork Orange (alternate)