When "Just the Ticket," starring Andy Garcia and Andie MacDowell, opens Friday, audiences won't miss one pivotal scene that ended up on the cutting-room floor -- but Francis Ford Coppola will. "One of the big reasons Andy (Garcia) and I made the movie isn't in the film, even though we shot the scene," "Ticket" director Richard Wenk tells EW Online.

The scene in question concerns Garcia's character, Gary. A ticket scalper, Gary reveals his feelings of guilt for allowing state health officials to mistreat his mentally ill mother. Over the years he religiously brings his mother gifts, but he cannot bring himself to visit her face to face. "This was shot, but the studios were kind of adamant that it dragged the movie down," says Wenk. "One of the most difficult things in the process was losing that angle."

Coppola, who volunteered to help out after seeing a rough cut of the film, didn't agree with United Artists' decision, so he kicked the studio's people out of the editing process and began to work with Wenk. Even though Coppola succeeded in revising some of the studio's cuts, he couldn't win the battle for Garcia's back story. "We would have needed to reshoot other things," says Wenk. "We were down the road too far."

Despite losing out to the studio, Wenk remains philosophical. "For a month Coppola would come back and forth from San Francisco to work with us. It was like getting an advanced degree from a master," says Wenk. "Regardless of how the movie does, I've learned so much getting it made, it was worth it."