Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids was one of the most popular and widely acclaimed comedies of the 2010s. With its two Oscar nominations – Best Original Screenplay for Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo and Best Supporting Actress for Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids became the first Judd Apatow production to be nominated for any Academy Awards. Wiig and McCarthy became movie stars overnight as a result of Bridesmaids, which remains a high benchmark for female-led comedies.

Wiig has been promoting her new comedy Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, which she co-wrote and stars in with Mumolo, and in an interview with the New York Times, she revealed a dark joke that got cut from Bridesmaids. On the eve of the wedding in the movie’s third act, Lillian (Maya Rudolph) goes missing and her new maid of honor Helen (Rose Byrne) recruits Lillian’s estranged best friend Annie (Wiig) to help with the search. The most memorable gag from this scene sees Annie driving recklessly past Officer Rhodes’ car to get his attention, but there was almost a much darker moment involving a corpse.

RELATED: Original Ghostbusters Director Cried After Watching His Son's New Sequel

According to Wiig, “when we were running around to find Lillian, we were going to find a woman lying on the ground. We’re like, ‘It’s Lillian – she’s dead!’ And then we were like, ‘Oh, wait – it’s not Lillian.’ And then we just keep running.” It’s easy to see why this scene was cut. The comic tone of finding a dead woman and callously leaving her behind is decidedly grimmer than the rest of Bridesmaids, in which the darkest jokes involve infected tattoos and C-bombs directed at teenagers.

The point of the scene in which Annie and Helen search for Lillian is really for them to reconcile their differences. Helen allows Annie to see the imperfect human being underneath her frustratingly perfect facade, which makes her more sympathetic. If they found a dead woman, then it might’ve distracted from the sentimentality of the moment. Even though Wiig and Byrne probably would’ve played the scene hilariously, Feig was right to cut it from the movie.

In the decade since the film hit theaters and became a huge box office hit, many fans have been demanding a Bridesmaids sequel. Feig addressed these demands last year and cast doubt on a sequel because of what worked about Bridesmaids: “Everybody thinks they want a Bridesmaids sequel, and it could be fun... It’s obviously up to Kristen – she’s the keeper of the keys on that – but [a Bridesmaids sequel] would have to be something that you can emotionally engage in again and not just go, ‘It’s Megan’s crazy wedding in the Bahamas!’ and all kinds of hijinks happen. That could be funny, but I just think you need more for a movie to be great.” In Bridesmaids, the jokes and bits are layered over a well-told story with clear-cut character arcs. If a sequel would just be jokes without the story and character, it wouldn’t be worth it.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is currently available via premium VOD. When it was first released, it quickly became the third-most rented title on Apple TV. Feig, on the other hand, was on board to helm a monster movie called Dark Army, but recently revealed that Universal has cold feet about the budget, so it might not come to fruition.

Bridesmaids is now available on Amazon Prime Video.

MORE: Danny DeVito Gives Fans An Update On Twins 2

Source: The New York Times