How Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was originally a much darker film

It turns out there was a very different cut of Jim Carrey’s Ace Ventura: Pet Detective – one that was meant to be much darker.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was a huge commercial success for Jim Carrey, propelling him onto the fast track to stardom and effectively launching the movie star phase of his career. But would the film have been so successful if left to the original edit which was darker in tone? 

As originally written by Jack Bernstein, Ace Ventura was a script that independent studio Morgan Creek had held onto for several years. In its opinion it could have been a Fletch for the 90s. Fletch and its sequel Fletch Lives were two detective comedies from the 1980s starring Chevy Chase. The chairman and CEO of Morgan Creek, James G. Robinson, wanted to produce a comedy that had a broad appeal as well, and for a while, this was going to be it.

Enter Tom Shadyac, who had a few acting roles and also became comedian Bob Hope’s youngest joke writer. He saw the potential of the script and offered to rewrite it. Robinson took him up on the offer and also gave him the chance to direct it – which he duly did.

Shadyac took home every draft Morgan Creek had and upon reading the scripts, realised that the film needed a stronger lead character. Morgan Creek had originally reached out to Rick Moranis to play the lead role but he turned it down. But when Shadyac teamed up with comedian Jim Carrey, the main character of Ace Ventura soon changed. Carrey adapted Ventura to fit his comic abilities, and Shadyac noted too that Carrey’s on set improvisational skills also helped define the over-the-top sense of Ventura.

They thought it possible that this film could be the end of their respective careers, so they went all out. Ace Ventura cost just $11m to put together. Neither of them had any idea it would break that amount on its opening weekend alone, let alone go on to earn more than $100m and spawn a sequel.

Shadyac has admitted that his cut of Ace Ventura is shorter than the one that was released in cinemas. He has a mantra of “when in doubt, leave it out.” However, there’s been quite a lot of deleted material that has made it out into the wild.

The US DVD release of the film included a couple of extra scenes with a blurb on the packaging to promote this as a selling point. There was also an extended edition shown on American television multiple times with over 12 minutes of restored deleted material. Here’s a handy compilation from YouTube…

There’s still a lot more material that was removed from the film before release that can be discovered by reading the script, and was also discussed by Shadyac on the DVD commentary. It would be fair to say that it points to a very different end result.

Let’s dig into it.

At the start of the film, the character of Ace Ventura is shown rescuing a small dog for a woman who, it’d be fair to say, he is attracted to. She repays him – and again, how can we put this – ‘in a very friendly way’, and not in a ‘look at my football sticker collection’ kind of friendly’. Originally this scene was even longer. A couple of photos exist (behave) that show that this scene was filmed but not included in the final cut.

If you’re a fan of Ace Ventura this may already feel a little out of place, but originally the comedy was going to be darker. Remember, Ace Ventura’s final edited adventure was suitable for teens with a US rating of PG-13 and here in the UK it was granted a 12 certificate upon release.

In this darker version, Ventura originally stops at a remote gas station in Ray Finkle’s home town to ask the attendant the location of a nearby sports bar. You can watch this scene in the aforementioned YouTube video. The gas station attendant, revealed to be called Bilbo in the script, is very depressed, but Ventura just wants the address to continue his investigation.

It’s not known if the rest of the scene was filmed, but it was due to be quite a depressing affair with the gas station attendant committing suicide. Here’s an excerpt from the script (and Morgan Creek’s copyright is acknowledged):

—

INT. BILBO’S GAS STATION – DAY

A pitifully sad country song plays on the radio. FERN BILBO sits at his cluttered desk with the end of an old shotgun in his mouth. He is struggling to reach the trigger.

Through the glass behind him, we see Ace’s car pull up to the only gasoline pump.

DING! The bell rings. Fern begrudgingly takes the gun out of his mouth, sets it down and walks out.

After Ventura obtains the information he requires and drives away, Bilbo was going to continue where he left off:

INT. BILBO’S GAS STATION – CONT

Fern enters, sits down at the desk, places the end of the shotgun in his mouth, reaches for the trigger and…

DING! Another car pulls up to the pump. Exasperated, he takes the gun out of his mouth.

FERN

(murmurs to himself as he gets up)

Can’t get anything done around here…

—

This wasn’t the end of Bilbo’s journey either, as there was one last scene to cap it all off. Ventura returns from Finkle’s house to use the payphone outside the gas station to call Melissa (Courtney Cox). Ace is oblivious to the events unfolding behind him as the script reveals:

—

In the background, we see two paramedics exit the gas station office rolling a dead body on a gurney. The area of the sheet that covers the face is a giant red spot. We widen to see them load good old Mr. Bilbo into an ambulance and drive away, ringing the station bell one more time.

—

Shadyac described this scene as also containing a bloody mess on the wall behind Bilbo’s chair, so it may have been filmed slightly differently.

The two goons ordered by Finkle to catch Ventura also met with a grisly death in the original cut. As seen in the finished film, Ventura swings a heavy hook on a rope which sends both men flying. The scene originally ran longer with both of their heads knocked clean off their bodies. Once the hook swings back towards Ventura, he catches it, wipes the blood from it and remarks there was no intent to kill and that it was all in self-defence. Gadzookz.

Finally, there’s a running joke throughout the film where Ventura is trying to catch a rare white Albino pigeon which has a large monetary award attached. The film ends on this plot thread with Ventura still having failed to catch it. As the movie builds up to its climax, the detective is involved in a car chase, trying to catch the kidnappers who’ve taken American football star Dan Marino. The kidnappers fire at Ace causing him to swerve through a park, narrowly avoiding people before losing control as the car rolls over.

In the finished film, the car rolls into an upright position and Ventura drives away. Again, originally, it was very different. Once the car had finished rolling, we see Ventura still strapped in but seemingly unconscious. The white pigeon lands on the door next to him. Ventura cracks open one eye and quickly lunges and catches the bird. He starts to sing joyously, “I did it! I did it! I caught the white pigeon! I caught the white pigeon!” He exits the car and continues to sing.

Then he notices all the pigeons sitting on the telephone wires, the monkey bars and the children’s swings. The sky becomes dark with hundreds of pigeons now flying towards him. He lets go of the white pigeon but it makes no difference. The birds attack, as described in the script:

—

Now we see ten birds flying away with a leg. Five birds flying away with an arm. Twenty others are trying to take Ace’s left arm off, and half his face is missing…

—

The proof of this scene being at least partially filmed came from, of all places, a posting from Morgan Creek’s Facebook page in 2015. It was accompanied with the following caption, “The vast majority of you have probably never seen this cut of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. In this deleted scene, Ace has a dream where he’s viciously attacked by pigeons. This is the end result. Happy Friday The 13th!

The sequence turns out to be a crazed dream as Ventura is awoken in his car by a small boy asking him to crash again because it looked so cool the first time.

Back to the original question, then: if this version of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective had been released, would Jim Carrey have become the huge megastar he is today?

Maybe the film would’ve gained a following and become a cult classic on home video. It’s certainly interesting to see what could’ve happened and, in the end, the removal of these scenes certainly made for arguably a better film. Now if only there was a darker version of The Grinch out there…

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