We already knew some time ago that the executives were unhappy with the ending of the film The Invasion from Director Oliver Hirschbiegel, and that the Wachowski Brothers were called in to reshoot the ending, but reports today are saying that there was much more than that reshot, perhaps even up to two thirds of the entire film.

The story goes that Warner Brothers saw a rough cut of the film and wanted to rework it but Hirschbiegel was unavailable to do the work. Instead they turned to the Wachowski Brothers to rewrite two thirds of the script and because they were busy with Speed Racer they pulled in James McTeigue from V for Vendetta (Filmstalker review) to direct.

There's a couple of things to consider in this story from Collider.com. First is that Joel Silver already denied that the ending had been reshot. Then there's the possibility that the Wachowski's and McTeigue are going to make a very commercially strong and visually exciting film, but at the same time I think it could be a real shame that we're losing the Hirschbiegel version. Perhaps we'll get to see it on a future DVD release?

I suspect that far from Hirschbiegel making a mess of it he produced something that Producers such as Silver and Roy Lee (as well as the other Producers on the film) didn't want to see, they wanted big commercial success, as can be seen by the acting names they pulled onboard.

Does this bother you at all for the final release? Are you wanting to see either version? Are you like me and keen to see the two in comparison at some point? I think it would be great to get Hirschbiegel back on board and finish his version for the DVD.