10 Movies That Were Almost WAY Darker
5. Clerks III
The third and apparently final Clerks movie was ultimately much darker than anyone expected, bookended by the deaths of Becky (Rosario Dawson) and Dante (Brian O'Halloran) as it was, but Kevin Smith's original 2010 draft of the script went in an even bleaker direction.
While promoting the sequel, Smith revealed that that his original Clerks III was "obsessed with death," beginning with Becky's demise.
This would cause Dante to go MIA as the film implies that he's an Oxycontin addict, leaving Randall (Jeff Anderson) and Elias (Trevor Fehrman) to take care of his deaf daughter in his absence.
The Quick Stop is also destroyed by Hurricane Sandy early on, causing Randall to have a nervous breakdown.
When Dante returns later in the film, he reveals that he's actually dying of cancer, and when the main characters all attend the opening of a new Avengers-esque blockbuster, Ranger Danger, a shooter opens fire on the audience with an AK-47.
Dante takes the bullets that were going to hit his daughter, while the shooter is then brutally killed by Elias.
Before Dante dies, he reconciles with Randall, and it's then revealed that Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) curb-stomped the shooter's partner waiting outside, in turn causing them to flee to Canada.
That's... a lot, and makes the movie we ended up with seem positively modest by comparison.