Warning! The following contains spoilers for The End of Oak Street! Don't read this if you want to go into the movie and be surprised!
Not even The End of Oak Street's trailer could've prepared me for this wild feature on the 2026 movie schedule. The film is truly filled with tons of surprises that include everything from dinosaur sex to a very shocking moment in which Ewan McGregor's Greg is killed off at the film's midpoint. Seriously, my jaw was on the floor at multiple points, and it turns out even the cast didn't see one particular plot twist coming.
McGregor spoke to EW about the wild twist where Greg ultimately falls victim to an Allosaurus after protecting Denise. He admitted that even though he knew it was coming when watching, it still caught him completely off guard:
I thought it was a surprise in the script, and I liked the idea that we lose one of the family in a moment where we don’t expect it earlier on than you expect to...Even knowing what’s happening and what happened, I was quite surprised by it. Good, good. They did an amazing job.
It's a big shock, much like the rest of The End of Oak Street, which quickly transitions from an Amblin-coded film to a wild nightmare. Greg's death is pretty horrific and gory, and certainly something you wouldn't have seen in classic family movies of the past. However, it's also one of the reasons why The End of Oak Street deserves its wild reviews.
Perhaps even more surprising than the death is that The End Of Oak Street ending sees Denise figuring out she can save Greg and many others when they travel back to the time before the incident occurred. Anne Hathaway revealed the original script did not have that bit, and while she was skeptical about Greg being resurrected (kind of) at the end, her perspective changed when seeing it with someone:
Greg always died in the script, but in the original movie that I signed up for, he didn’t come back. And that was something that got changed very close to the start of filming. ... When I saw the movie, I saw it with someone who had lost their father, and they burst into tears at the ending. They said, ‘Actually, it’s just what I want from a movie like this, and it could only happen in a movie, and I love it.’ And so I just want to give my absolute credit and hats off to J.J. and David for coming up with that ending.
I appreciate Anne Hathaway admitting she was wrong about the change, and I also do get where she's coming from. The End of Oak Street is absolutely loaded with wild moments, violence, and confusing twists and turns. While it has gained general approval from audiences and critics, there's a world where this movie could've easily swung the other way and been called laughably bad.
I think how it was scripted changes The End of Oak Street for the better and gives the happy ending I don't think anyone was expecting. Greg and Denise are seemingly no longer on the verge of divorce, she writes a successful book, and they save many of their friends.
It's a perfect ending for everyone except for the versions of Denise and the children who were sent to the past without Greg, who I have to think did not survive, as they weren't at the cookout at the end of the movie. Maybe we'll get a follow-up movie in which we get to learn what happened to them, and we'll get another wild time-travel '80's-tastic adventure?
The End of Oak Street is currently in theaters, and I think it's totally worth watching there rather than waiting to see it when it comes to streaming. There are so many moments that make it ideal to watch with a crowd, and I think it makes the movie more enjoyable.
