It is speculated that Iron Man 3 will have a shade darker than the sequels. While hardly 100% ultra-serious all the time, the film takes a darker tone than the previous Iron Man entries, with Tony suffering from post traumatic stress after the events of The Avengers, his Malibu home being destroyed, and the terrorist organization the Ten Rings returning to take revenge on Stark for his actions in Iron Man. In fact most of the trailers are free from the usual Stark quips, instead highlighting the sheer scale and danger of his predicament. In actuality though, the film is arguably the most comedic of the trilogy, containing plenty of humour to balance with some of the more darker moments of the film.
Star Trek Into Darkness, if the trailers are any indication, looks to be significantly darker than the 2009 film, largely due to its Big Bad's one-man war on Starfleet itself whose actions have more in common with those of a terrorist than any previous Trek villain.
Speaking of the franchise of the Harry Potter films, is well known that over time has been become increasingly dark and serious, but this is evidenced in the last three sequels, both in terms of cinematography and subject matter. The first two films was full of warm golds and reds, while the later films favours cold blues and Deathly Hallows is almost black and white. To further hammer this fact in, "Hedwig's Theme", which introduces each film, sounds slightly shriller and more discordant in each consecutive film. But after Voldemort was defeated in the last film, the vivid colours of the first movies return.
At some points in the final three films the action, which is easy to see when watching in a dark cinema or room, is hard to see in a bright room with sunlight shining in.
Revenge of the Sith. This sequel manages to be the darkest of all prequels, and probably the darkest of the entire saga so far. This is where you know the plot of the Fallen Hero, The Bad Guy Wins this time and this is the first in the series that blood shown graphically (note when Anakin is almost killed).
Babe 2: Pig in the City is very much this trope compared to the original. The original was about a little pig on a farm who was taken in by the female sheepdog and was mostly lighthearted. Tear Jerker here and there, but the darkest element was when Babe's parents are herded to the slaughterhouse. In Babe 2, there's a hotel with illegal pets, animal control, a vicious bulldog that nearly hangs him trying to kill Babe, and one of those little wheelchair dogs who almost dies. Terrifying for some kids.
While many versions of The Phantom of the Opera go in the opposite direction, the 1989 film turned the story into a bloody slasher flick, with Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund in the title role. This movie is much more in keeping with the original novel's tone as far as the titular character's obsession with Christine goes, to the point of his being quite willing to kill for her, but even then it's still a gentler version of the story compared to the original novelization.
Richard Kelly wrote a screenplay for Louis Sachar's lighthearted Black Comedy, Holes, that went in this direction. Instead of searching for buried treasure at a juvenile delinquent summer camp, the movie would have had the boys searching for nuclear weapons in a post-apocalyptic Texas. One scene has Stanley visiting a prostitute. The studio instead used the screenplay written by Sachar himself.
A common trend in films about King Arthur, which is a pretty downbeat legend to begin with.
Excalibur combines Magical Realism with gritty, bloody violence, reaching a peak of dark edginess in an early scene in which a knight in blood-stained armour tricks the wife of his nemesis into having sex with him. There are plenty of impalings and crow-pecked corpses to go around as well.
Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac. What it lacks in gore and Dung Ages ambiance, it makes up for by being extremely dour, mechanical and joyless, Bresson films are wont to be.
The "historical" film King Arthur from 2004 has the Knights of the Round Table turn out to be just a pack of Roman mercenaries fighting evil Saxons in a cold, windswept wasteland of an England.
Licence To Kill is by far the darkest of the series to that point. It starts with Colombian drug lord Franz Sanchez feeding Bond's longtime friend and ally to a shark (after raping and killing his new bride), followed by Bond resigning from MI 6, going rogue, and killing every member of Sanchez's organization in increasingly graphic ways.
The Daniel Craig Bond films, starting with Casino Royale are darker and more realistic than previous Bond films, going deeper into Bond's pathos and doing away with most of the wisecracks, gadgets and slapstick. Skyfall also goes in for Deconstructor Fleet, Dented Iron, serious questions about everyone's sanity, and The Bad Guy Wins by killing M although his victory is indirect as he is killed by Bond before M kicks the bucket.
The second Home Alone film is much less lighthearted than the first, taking place in New York rather than a Chicago suburb, and with Kevin using much more dangerous traps against the Bandits. Also, when they catch him, Harry fully intends to murder Kevin.
The third film takes it even further, with the villains no longer being petty house robbers, but a group working for a terrorist organization, searching for a lost computer chip. One scene involves one of the villains tying up an elderly neighbor in a garage and leaving the door open ... on a snowy December day. She's barely conscious when she's found.
Even the classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was not immune to this trope. When E.T. first became a hit in theaters, Steven Spielberg and E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison came up with a treatment for a sequel: E.T. II:Nocturnal Fears, in which Elliot and his friends are kidnapped by evil albino offshoots of E.T.'s species. Fortunately, E.T. returns to Earth and rescues them, but not until after the kids have all been tortured. They thought better of it.
TRON: Legacy is much more grim than the 1982 original. When you got programs violently shattering into data, genocide, a brutal dictator, and brainwashing programs to invade the real world, you got more than just the suits and the environment that's darker than the first Tron.
Even the 1982 Original was a D&E risk on Disney's part, their second attempt after The Black Hole. Recall that 5 years earlier, they released Pete's Dragon, which was one of their most saccharine entries. The classic had a few nasty deaths (including an Involuntary Battle to the Death), Cold-Blooded Torture, and some heavy-duty religious themes. Then, there's the infamous Deleted Scene that's just shy of a full-blown sexual encounter...
The animated series entry, Tron Uprising manages to get even more Grimdark. Scenes of mass murder, witch hunts over the Renegade, a Hero with Bad Publicity. And Tron himself tries to kill his apprentice in cold blood for intervening in a rampage of revenge against the man who tortured him. It's saying a lot about the franchise when one of the Lighter and Softer entries is a first-person shooter that was exiled from canon.
The Black Hole itself qualifies on its own. Released in 1979 it was controversial for being Disney's first PG-rated film, and featured numerous violent and disturbing sequences the likes of which no Disney film had ever shown before. Even the resident "funny robots" were not actually that funny and were played straight. Although it took a few years, the move towards more adult fare exhibited by Black Hole, Tron, a rather adult comedy called Trenchcoat and others eventually led Disney to establish the Touchstone brand for releasing films in the PG, PG-13 and R-rated realm, while reserving the main Disney brand for (mostly) G or the occasional PG film. This later went by the wayside however, as the Disney brand came to be used for dark, PG-13 rated films like Pirates of the Caribbean.
Speaking of Pirates of the Caribbean, the sequels. The second film pits Jack against a threat he can't talk his way out of and, in the process, puts more emphasis on his morally ambiguous side, with him resorting to genuinely shady stuff to escape his Deal with the Devil. The third opens with Cutler Beckett presiding over a mass execution - and becoming the first Disney villain to kill a child onscreen. Elizabeth and Will both have to join in the speed chess game just to keep up, with Elizabeth getting the big Shoot the Dog moment of leaving Jack to face the Kraken so the others can escape.
The Godzilla franchise jumps between this and Lighter and Softer. No film has ever topped the original but some try pretty hard. Mothra Vs Godzilla was bleaker than the goofy King Kong vs. Godzilla, Godzilla Vs Hedorah had people melting and one of the biggest body counts of all the franchise after the kid-centered Godzilla's Revenge. Terror Of Mechagodzilla was Darker and Edgier than Godzilla Vs Mecha Godzilla which featured violence but it had a very pulpy story; Terror even deals with the issue of suicide.Godzilla 1985 dealt with a possible World War III and was politically heavy, Biollante was just a tad bit lighter but very dark still. Godzilla Vs Destoroyah dealt with Godzilla dying, Jr. dying, and possibly a nuclear meltdown. GMK was even bleaker with a Godzilla terrorizing Japan than Megaguirus.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra had EVERYONE wearing black and a knives and bullets always finding their way into enemy eye sockets. Then we have the Baroness display her cleavage and the buxom Scarlett wearing a sports bra while on a treadmill. Not to mention aguy's face is literally DISSOLVED by his own nanites!
The sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, seems to be much darker and less cartoonish than the original.
The the original animated TV series, despite being about a paramilitary group assigned to combat a terrorist organization, was nonetheless intended to be child-friendly, i.e. A-Team Firing galore, and despite the fact Scarlett was armed with a crossbow, she'd never consider using it to actually, you know, kill anyone. Perhaps reflecting the post-9/11 attitudes that A Team Firing is unrealistic and cheesy, the GI Joes of the live action film (and recent-vintage animated reprises and the comic books) are depicted as you'd expect a paramilitary force fighting terrorists would be - ruthless killers each with double- and triple-digit body counts. Even Scarlett.
The original GI Joe: The Movie is way darker than the animated show. Its revealed Cobra are led by an ancient race of reptilian beings, most of the familiar cast are held prisoner by giant alien plants for the entire film, we follow a new team of rookies as they struggle to replace the Joes, Cobra Commander devolves into a giant snake with 100 eyes, Roadblock goes blind, Duke DIES (and is revived thanks to Executive Meddling adding unconvincing ADR).
The Transformers series in general. Robots are getting ripped apart, blown up, or their faces bifurcated. The added sex (and not much else) is supplied by Megan Fox.
Although amputation, decapitation and on at least one occasion, crucifixion, were all features of the 80s transformers comics.
And the third film cranks it Up to Eleven, with humans being assassinated, as well as having Sentinel Prime launch a full scale Decepticon assault on Earth, complete with scenes of carnage.
Ghostbusters II might not be as good as the first movie, but it sure is darker than the first, involving an ancient god in a painting looking to be reborn in a baby, people's emotions manipulating and being manipulated by pink slime under the city, and our heroes (temporarily) being put in an insane asylum at the beginning of the Darkest Hour.
Back To The Future Part II compared to the first movie. Why? 3 reasons. 1, the alternate 1985. 2, in the alternate timeline, Biff marries Lorraine after killing George. And 3, Doc Brown is institutionalized in the alternate timeline.
Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween 2007 and its sequel fits this trope. While the originals were fairly dark in their own right, Zombie amps it Up to Eleven by creating a darker, gritter world filled with rapistorderlies, necrophiliacs, Abusive Parents (namely Michael Myers'), and a barrage of characters who swear like sailors. Even Michael himself kills in a more violent, brutal manner. Not everybody was fond of these changes.
Snow White and the Huntsman compared to almost any other adaptation without a doubt. From the trailers alone, we can already see that this movie is way more violent, with epic-scale battles and soldiers smashing each other to pieces left, right and center, has very scary-looking creatures, and throws in a few nasty twists such as the Queen really being a much older woman that sucks the life out of much younger women to preserve her youth. Oh, and if that weren't enough, almost the entire film and its settings are very dull and colourless, whereas in most other versions, the kingdom and most parts of the forest are much more colourful and presented as nice places to live. Here? Not so much.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was a relatively tame (by today's standards, at least) family-friendly comedy involving two Idiot Heroes being granted a Time Travel device to research historical figures (including Bowdlerised versions of Napoleon and Billy The Kid) in a Race Against the Clock to pass a history test. Contrast this with Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, which would quite likely scare the original film's target audience shitless. Unlike in the previous film where their biggest threat was Ted's dad sending him to military school, Bogus Journey has a legitimate, politically-driven Big Bad who builds robot versions of the protagonists who hunt down and actually kill them. This leads the film into a Back from the Dead storyline where the two meet Death himself, wander around Sand Dimas as ghosts, get sucked into Hell via occult magic where they encounter a rather convincing Satan and crawl through a fire-and-brimstone lit air duct maze where they encounter exaggerated versions of their childhood traumas. There's also numerous homages to R-rated sci-fi and horror films amongst other added horrors, a subplot involving plenty of Squicky incest jokes, drastically harsher and more frequent profanity (including a Precision F-Strike at one point), and some Ho Yay dialogue. All this in a film that came out a mere 2 years after the original; hardly the most ample time for its audience to prepare for it.
If this article and Iron Man 3 are any indication, this may apply to the entire Phase 2 of the MCU.
Kevin Feige has said the goal of Phase 2 is to diversify the content of the MCU rather than just making traditionally superhero films. To that end, he said Captain America: The Winter Soldier will be more of an edgy political thriller than a superhero flick.
Free Willy 2 & 3. Compared to the first movie, in which the only tearjerker was Willy almost dying. The second had Jessie nearly drowning and getting incinerated by an oil tanker fire. While the dangers there were unintentional, the third amps it up by having human villains not capture the whales, but try to kill them and sell their meat to underground markets. Willy's not exempt from this either since in the climax of the film, he actually almost kills the captain of the whaling ship for attacking him, his mate and their unborn child.
Once Upon A Time In The West is somewhat this in the Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns films. This film signals a shift to the second phase of Sergio Leone's style, being slower and more serious than the Dollars Trilogy.
For a Few Dollars More, which unlike its sequels in the same trilogy dollars, note a much darker tone, especially because this time we find with El Indio, a villain with no redeeming and human qualities, several scenes in which he appears are alongside a thriller film. He's even more frightening than the vicious Frank of Once Upon a Time in the West.
Rambo IV. Even for the Grand Finale, certainly manages to be the sequel darker than all his predecessors. There is much more bloodand extreme violence, at point Up to Eleven, and, speaking of the Big Bad, it not would be strange takes him in a top 5 of the most monstrous villains in the film history.
Death Wish 5. Every single murder is gorn.
The new 2013 Mortal Kombat movie is so Darker and Edgier, it actually seems like a parody of how to take an existing goofy franchise and turn it Darker And Edgier.
Casino. It is far more violent, darker, edgier and downbeat than Goodfellas. And its killings are far more stomach churning. So yea, this is Up to Eleven compared with the earlier sequel.
Menace II Society. It's much more violent, sad, downbeat, darker and edgier than Boyz n the Hood. This film has almost no lighter moments.
Alien³ is a much darker film compared to the one that preceded it. In fact is like riding a train to downer land. Aliens was a fairly standard action film with an overall happy ending (and that isn't a bad thing). Its sequel however has an air of hopelessness that just pervades the entire thing. Two major characters are killed right at the start and another one is damaged beyond repair, the film is set on a grimy prison planet populated by murderers and scum, there is almost nothing to fight the alien off with so more characters, even likeable ones, die left and right (often with no build-up), and even Ripley is killed off at the end because it's the only way she could stop The Company from bringing the Alien gestating inside her back with them. Sure things get better with "Resurrection", but that doesn't exactly raise sprits either (due to quality rather than tone)
The events and the characterisation of the family members in the The Addams Family films are significantly darker than they were in the TV series, although still not as dark as some of the original Charles Addams single-panel cartoons.
