‘Ace Ventura’s Script Was Originally Much Darker

The Big Picture

• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective’s original draft was much darker and bloodier, with gruesome scenes that were ultimately cut from the final film, aligning with the comedic tone Carrey and Shadyac aimed for.
• The success of Ace Ventura led to a not-so-successful film franchise, with a sequel and subsequent animated series and made-for-TV movie that strayed from the original film’s charm and chemistry.
• Despite rumors of a third Ace Ventura film in development, it appears to be a pipe dream for now, although Carrey hasn’t ruled out a return if a talented director presents a fresh, interesting take on the character.

1994 was a banner year for Jim Carrey. Why? It marked the year he had not one, not two, but three major hits. Of course, The Mask utilized his talent for contorting his body into inhuman proportions to its fullest, along with his trademark motormouth comedy. Dumb and Dumber paired him up with Jeff Daniels for some amazingly asinine comedy (though its attempts to spawn a franchise are better left to memory.) But the film that really put him on the map was Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. As the title implies, Carrey plays Ventura – a private detective who specializes in finding lost animals but is soon drawn into a high-profile murder case when he’s hired to find the mascot of a missing sports team.

Ace Ventura was Jim Carrey’s first collaboration with Tom Shadyac; the actor and director were a match made in comedy heaven and went on to make a string of successful comedies including Liar, Liar and Bruce Almighty. That collaboration extended to Ace Ventura‘s screenplay, which the duo penned with Jack Bernstein. Ace Ventura‘s initial draft is darker than what made it onto the screen, to the point where the thought of Carrey starring in the film would have been unthinkable.

‘Ace Ventura’s’ Original Draft Had Murder, Mayhem, and Nightmare Fuel Galore

Most of Ace Ventura‘s humor comes from Carrey making a crude joke, whether it’s at the expense of the Miami Police Department – especially where hard-nosed Lt. Lois Einhorn (Sean Young) is concerned – or genuinely inspired slapstick. One of those moments concerns a chase with thugs Vinnie (Frank Adonis) and Roc (Ronald ‘Tiny Ron’ Taylor. In the final film, Ace drops a steel hook that’s hanging on a chain and knocks them out. The initial draft was much bloodier, as both Vinnie and Roc had their heads torn off by the hook. This moment isn’t just jarring, but it also feels way out of place with the tone that Shadyac and Carrey were aiming for. It isn’t the only time the original script went off the rails.

One scene has Ace going to talk to a gas station attendant named Fern while he’s looking for leads in the case. This soon takes a left turn as Fern breaks down sobbing after recalling how most of his lovers tend to lead him until he accidentally gives Ace a clue. As Ace leaves, Fern takes a shotgun and places it into his mouth…but is stopped by a waiting customer. By now, you must be thinking “It can’t get any worse.” It does: Ace has a dream sequence where he is torn to pieces by a flock of pigeons. This feels less like a scene that belongs in a comedy and more like one cut from Alfred Hitchcock‘s Birds.

Most of this outlandish behavior can be traced to Carrey’s desire to go for broke. “I wanted to keep the action unreal and over the top,” he told the Los Angeles Times following Ace Ventura‘s release. “When it came time to do my reaction to kissing a man, I wanted it to be the biggest, most obnoxious, homophobic reaction ever recorded. It’s so ridiculous it can’t be taken seriously–even though it guarantees that somebody’s going to be offended.” The gambit paid off in spades, as Carrey would incorporate much of the chaotic comedy that fueled Ace Ventura into his future performances and reap the rewards.

‘Ace Ventura’s Success Led to a Not-So-Successful Film Franchise

The smash success of Ace Ventura led to a sequel, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Hollywood can be somewhat of a jungle itself, and its prevailing law is that when a movie is a success you’d better damn well replicate said success and keep the money faucet flowing. Case in point: When Nature Calls was released one whole year after the original Ace Ventura, though this time around Steve Oedekirk would step in for Shadyac in the director’s course. (History would repeat itself with Evan Almighty.) When Nature Calls was quite the success, even outgrossing its predecessor, but that was a sharp contrast to its critical reception. “If the movie itself aimed higher, it could have drawn laughs without compromising Ace’s anarchic sense of fun. But Ace is slightly nastier this time,” Janet Maslin wrote for the New York Times.

Despite this, the Ace Ventura franchise would receive two more sequels in the form of an animated series – back when that was common practice – and the made-for-TV movie Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective. This featured the son of Ace, but none of the creative talent that made the first film what it was. There was a streak of darkness in the original script, however: Ace left his family. Yes, there is an Ace Ventura movie that implies its title character is a deadbeat dad. This flies in the face of the original movie; Ace was a bit of a screwup but once he was on a case he pursued it with the passion of a bloodhound. He also had intense chemistry with publicist Melissa Robinson (Courteney Cox), which may have been fueled in part by the fact that Cox had a crush on Carrey at the time. Painting him as a deadbeat father only tarnishes Ace Ventura Jr, which was on thin ice to begin with.

In 2021, rumors sprung up that a third Ace Ventura film was in development – rumors that caught heat when production company Morgan Creek announced that screenwriters Josh Casey and Pat Miller were attached to the project. The duo wrote the Sonic the Hedgehog films, which saw Carrey returning to his comedic roots as the titular hedgehog’s nemesis Dr. Robotnik, so hopes were high. But two years later, it appears as though the project was a pipe dream. Carrey hasn’t ruled out a return to the franchise, however; he told E! News that he would return on one condition. “”I think after the fact when there’s been a lot of years, unless some genius person, director, auteur comes to you with a completely new take on what’s going on, you know. If Chris Nolan came to me and said ‘I want to make Ace Ventura real and I want to do something, you know, something more interesting…’ then I might listen.” he said.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is available to stream on the Roku Channel.

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