Editing Dogma (film) (section)

===Development===
On October 25, 2000, Kevin Smith wrote an essay titled ''In the Beginning... The Story of Dogma'', which details the history and genesis of how ''Dogma'' came to be. His essay is available on the ''Dogma'' 2-disc Special Edition DVD.

Before Smith began writing ''[[Clerks (1994 film)|Clerks]]'', he began noting down ideas for a film called ''God''. During his brief period in film school, he essentially wrote the scene introducing Rufus, but this version did not feature Jay and Silent Bob. During the development of ''Clerks'', Smith continued to jot down ideas for his ''God'' project, including having the main character be a high school jock, the conception of 13th Apostle, Rufus, and a muse named Serendipity; but, Smith didn't have a story to work off of.

By the time ''Clerks'' had been picked up for distribution, Smith began writing the first draft for the film. He felt calling the project ''God'' was inappropriate, and retitled it ''Dogma''. The first draft was completed in August 1994, with 148 pages accomplished, and more additions; the high school protagonist was changed to a stripper named Bethany who meets Jay and Silent Bob at a nudie booth, Azrael (or known throughout the script as the "Shadowy Figure") was introduced in the final 30 pages, and Bethany blew up the church in order to not let Bartleby and Loki pass through the archway. After Smith and ''Clerks'' producer [[Scott Mosier]] reread the draft, they decided that they didn't want ''Dogma'' to be their sophomore film; they didn't want to tackle a bigger scale picture until they felt ready to do it. Despite including the line "Jay and Silent Bob will return in ''Dogma''" at the end of ''Clerks'', Smith moved to [[Universal Pictures|Universal Studios]] in order to develop his next film, ''[[Mallrats]]''.

During ''Mallrats{{'}}'' production, Smith revisited the ''Dogma'' script and made some changes; Bethany's job went from stripper to an abortion clinic and included an [[orangutan]] for Jay and Silent Bob to hang out with. In 1996, he dropped the orangutan and reworked Bethany to be played by his then-girlfriend [[Joey Lauren Adams]]. During that time, he was writing ''[[Chasing Amy]]'' and got [[Ben Affleck]] to agree to be in both projects. After ''Chasing Amy'' was released to critical and box-office success, Smith felt confident enough to make ''Dogma''.<ref name="Beginning">{{cite news|title=''In the Beginning... The Story of Dogma''|author=Kevin Smith|date=October 25, 2000}}</ref>