Jim Carrey Was On Board to Make a BRUCE ALMIGHTY Sequel Where He Would Have Had the Powers of Satan
Jim Carrey starred in the 2003 movie Bruce Almighty, in which he played a guy named Bruce who is given the powers and responsibilities of God. It was a funny movie that had a positive message, and the franchise went on to make the 2007 movie Evan Almighty, starring Steve Carell. That movie had a Noah’s Ark theme, and it was also funny and cute, but the franchise stopped there.
Now it’s been revealed that a second Bruce movie was actually pitched, and the idea had Carrey on board. In a recent interview with SYFY Wire (via CB), screenwriters Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe revealed that they did initially pitch a sequel to the film on the night of its opening, tentatively titled Brucifer, which would have given Bruce the powers of Satan. Carrey loved the idea, and it was pitched to Universal Pictures as in 2010, but ultimately it did not end up working out.
Koren explained:
"His manager and him wanted to do Brucifer. We went in and pitched it, but it never quite worked out, because it was later on … It would have been another giant movie and I don't think they wanted to do it. It just didn't work out for some reason, but a lot of people loved it, including Jim."
As Koren and O'Keefe revealed, the inciting incident for Bruce's turn towards Hell would have involved his wife, Grace (Jennifer Aniston), getting killed off — and then returning in a way not unlike An American Werewolf in London.
Koren said:
"You tend to lose your faith when the world seems unfair, and that's what got him. It came from a serious place, but we were gonna write it in a very friendly way. We certainly didn't want to depress people. So I think that scared [the studio] a little bit, but to Jim's credit, he totally understood that we were going to make a big comedy and thought everybody would connect with it."
"I remember when we pitched it, he was laughing his ass off," Koren continued. "Because we had her come back as Jennifer Aniston. He said, 'No, she has to look like a zombie first and then we'll make her beautiful again.' We thought that was brilliant."
O'Keefe added:
"It was going to be the Trials of Job, essentially. The world had not gone his way since he was God. Everything was great for a while; he was married and it all fell apart. He was once again questioning everything and then got a different way to solve things." O'Keefe goes on to describe Brucifer as "the most cost-effective sequel imaginable," given how they planned for Beelzebub to either be played by Freeman or Carrey himself. "Totally different themes, of course, but the beats everyone enjoys."
I’m sure there would have been a bunch of people who would have been upset about this storyline, but it sounds like it would have been funny, and would have ended up having the same heart as the first movie. Would you have liked to have seen this movie happen?