10 More Sequels That Totally Ruined The Previous Movie's Ending

2. Becky Dies - Clerks III

Clerks II ended in decidedly optimistic fashion, with Dante (Brian O'Halloran) proposing to his pregnant lover Becky (Rosario Dawson), while Dante and Randall buy the Quick Stop to run themselves.

It was another 16 years before Clerks III was released, and Kevin Smith opted to shift gears into more serious-minded drama territory. 

Smith made this immediately clear by revealing in the bleak opening montage that a still-pregnant Becky was killed by a drunk driver along with her unborn child shortly after the events of Clerks II.

You can't even say that Becky was killed off because Rosario Dawson was unavailable, because she's in the movie for several scenes as a spirit who appears before Dante.

Couple this with the fact that Randall suffers a heart attack early in the movie and Dante straight-up dies of one at the end, and Clerks III is ultimately a far more depressing experience than many fans were prepared for.

Smith was clearly drawing heavy inspiration from this own health troubles in recent years - namely a near-fatal 2018 heart attack - but ultimately some felt that he strayed too far from the lighter dramedy tone of the first two films.

Clerks III's ending wasn't an inherently unrealistic outcome for Dante, but did Smith also need to kill his wife and unborn baby?