Happy Death Day almost looked very different — with Megan Fox in the starring role! The hit Blumhouse horror-comedy starring Jessica Rothe nearly had a different leading lady: Megan Fox, whose turn in Jennifer's Body proves she has the acting chops to pull off tongue-in-cheek horror films. The movie had a different name and plot; still, there are distinct similarities between Fox's canceled project, Half to Death, and Happy Death Day.
Happy Death Day follows self-centered college student Tree who finds herself in a Groundhog's Day-type situation with a twist. She is trapped in an endless loop on her birthday that ends with her getting killed every night. But the more times that Tree dies a violent death, the weaker she becomes. She needs to find her killer before it's too late and she dies a permanent death.
Related: How Many Times Tree Died In The Happy Death Day Movies
The original version of the movie was titled Half to Death, and it was set to be co-produced by Michael Bay. Megan Fox signed on for the lead in 2007, with Antti Jokinen set to direct [via FilmJerk]. For unknown reasons, the project fell into development hell. Based on the description in the PR release, however, Half to Death hit all the same beats as Happy Death Day, like the time loop premise, but the changes made to the original screenplay significantly changed the movie's tone. If it wasn't for Happy Death Day director Chris Landon input, the movie likely wouldn't have been as successful as it ended it up being. As Landon describes in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he worked off of Scott Lobdell's Half to Death draft but created something unique to his own vision for the story.
Happy Death Day is a goofy, PG-13 horror-comedy. While Tree solving her own murder is the driving force of the movie, Happy Death Day is anchored by her sweet budding romance with classmate Carter (Israel Broussard). Half to Death seemed to follow the structure of a more traditional slasher film. The central romance didn't exist. Happy Death Day included a false ending which led to Tree ultimately discovering her roommate had been trying to murder her out of pure jealousy. Half to Death didn't have any of this. The original screenplay was an R-rated movie in which Tree's roommate Lori and Lori's college professor boyfriend were killing Tree together. But Half to Death was eventually lost in development hell more than a decade ago and never saw the light of day.
Half to Death had the makings of a run-of-the-mill 2000s horror movie. That decade in horror was defined by pure terror and the "torture porn" of hit franchises like Saw. Because of that, it would have likely been something forgettable. Horror changed a lot in the 2010s, as the genre began to blur the lines between both mainstream and arthouse movies. This made 2010s horror movies more inclusive than the previous decade. Since Happy Death Day was repurposed as a 2010s mainstream horror movie, it spoke to a wider audience. The movie not only drew from the horror genre, but also romantic comedy and straight comedy. Those factors are what made Happy Death Day so successful enough for a sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, but this likely would not have happened with Half to Death.
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