Escape Room: Tournament of Champions star Logan Miller revealed that there was a solo room that was entirely cut from the film. The horror series Escape Room started in 2019, which was inspired by the escape room challenges that became popular. The film follows a group of people who are invited to participate in one of these escape rooms with a large cash prize if they manage to figure it out. However, they soon discover that the stakes are a matter of life and death, as the puzzles have deadly consequences.
The sequel, subtitled Tournament of Champions, sees the return of Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Miller). In trying to find proof of their claims and lock up those responsible, they find themselves in another set of deadly escape rooms. This time, they're playing alongside other survivors who have also previously escaped the game. Given that they are all considered strong puzzle-solvers, the difficulty and complexity of the rooms have increased. They must work together if they hope to survive once again.
In an interview with Bloody Disgusting's podcast The Boo Crew, Miller talked about his character's journey in the sequel. He revealed that there was supposed to be a solo escape room for Ben, which was cut entirely from the film. While he didn't go too into detail, he did say that it involved a sauna with the consequence of potentially burning to death. However, it ultimately didn't end up fitting into the story. Read on below for Miller's full statement:
“As an actor, you’re always disappointed when you see things that ended up on the cutting room floor, but there was an entire room that I was in, a solo room, that ended up getting completely cut out of the movie, and replaced with something else. I won’t give it away, but… I was in a sauna, and I was burning to death. There was an element of the story that wasn’t working, and that’s what’s so great about the attention to detail that we try to get. We try to make sure the scenes are working so well. It might not be as good as we can make it. What it was replaced with was something so much more insane… it was me drowning in this room. I guess burning to death is not as fun as drowning, visually.”
The characters in Tournament of Champions are truly put through a lot over the course of the runtime. Some of the puzzles require more steps to complete than those in the original film. However, the rooms all fit into a story being told, which is revealed during the movie's climax. Given that Miller said an element of the story wasn't working, it must have not fit with the film's twist. However, there's no way for audiences to know entirely what he means by that without seeing the scene that was removed.
The PG-13 horror film has to be especially creative with its rooms, as it has to avoid landing an R-rating. There are only so many ways to kill characters onscreen while maintaining a PG-13 rating. While some compare it to a watered-down Saw, the series of puzzles is more similar to Cube. Even with the PG-13 rating, the first two rooms in particular maintain a level of nail-biting tension that's rather impressive. However, Tournament of Champions runs out of steams in its third act, so it would be interesting to see how this sauna room would have impacted the film's loss of tension later in the running time. If the filmmakers don't intend to use a similar idea for a room in Escape Room 3, perhaps the Blu-ray/DVD will have it included in the deleted scenes.
Source: Bloody Disgusting
