10 Times Movies Panicked And CHANGED THE ENDING Just Before Release

Kevin Smith's Clerks is one of the all-time great indie success stories - Smith maxed out credit cards to generate the film's $27,575 budget, and took it to the Sundance Film Festival where it was bought by Miramax. And the rest, as they say, is history.

But things could've gone very differently if Smith didn't make a judicious change to the comedy's ending, and it all came in just under the wire.

Clerks' first ever public screening was at the Independent Feature Film Market in October 1993, around two months before its Sundance premiere, where Smith's original ending saw Dante (Brian O'Halloran) get shot and killed by a robber.

Despite general praise for the film, the ending was poorly received by the audience, including filmmaker John Pierson, who advised Smith to cut Dante's death and end the movie a scene earlier as Randall (Jeff Anderson) leaves the Quick Stop.

And so, with mere weeks to go until the Sundance premiere, Smith went back into the editing room and gave Dante a reprieve, in turn ensuring Clerks' commercial success and the birth of Smith's sprawling View Askewniverse.

If Dante died at the end, Clerks would've probably been a one-and-done deal.