The director Jim Carrey regretted turning down: “He was about to take over the world”
In Hollywood, there’s an old saying: “Nobody knows anything”. Despite the countless industry insiders paid to predict which films will succeed, which actors will resonate, and which technologies will shape the future of filmmaking, it’s all just educated guesswork. No one truly knows what will hit. As a result, many future greats have been dismissed early in their careers. In fact, Jim Carrey once did exactly that to a director who would later become one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in the industry.
Before 1994, few audience members or Hollywood tastemakers knew who Carrey was. Eagle-eyed folks might have remembered him from minor roles in late-1980s movies like Pink Cadillac and Earth Girls Are Easy, and sketch comedy fans may have been familiar with him from his time on In Living Colour. However, as a movie star, he had no profile – until he became the biggest star in the world almost overnight.
You see, 1994 was the year that Carrey had three enormous comedy hits in a row: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber. By the end of the year, Carrey had risen from a nobody to a star capable of commanding $7million per film thanks to those three movies making a mind-boggling $700m at the worldwide box office. Naturally, the studios were keen to keep that gravy train rolling down the tracks, so Carrey was quickly snapped up for villain duties in Batman Forever, while a quickfire sequel to Ace Ventura was also rushed into production.
When it came time to choose a director for Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, though, Carrey was given the keys to the kingdom by Warner Brothers. He settled on Steve Oedekerk, who worked as a script consultant on the first film and had penned the sequel. It was a safe pick for the sequel, as Carrey knew he could work well with Oedekerk, a man who would let him improvise during takes and change scenes from day to day.
However, Carrey was presented with another option before choosing Oedekerk—one that was much riskier but, in hindsight, could have paid off big time. When a young music video director in his 20s pitched his ideas for helming the project, though, Carrey didn’t recognise the future greatness that was standing in front of him.
At the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, Carrey was waxing lyrical about Spike Jonze, the maverick director of Being John Malkovich and Her. Jonze had just produced his documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, about the making of Man on the Moon, when Carrey found himself lost in playing the eccentric comedian Andy Kaufman.
Carrey revealed: “I’ve been wanting to do something with Spike forever. I was stupid enough to turn him down to direct Ace 2 because I had no idea who he was. And he came in and pitched all kinds of shit, and he was about to take over the world, and I didn’t know it. I was like, ‘I don’t know, this guy’s new.’ And I’ve been kicking myself ever since.”
In Carrey’s defence, when he met Jonze for Ace 2, the young man had never directed a feature film. However, neither had Oedekerk, while Jonze had already amassed a catalogue of artistically innovative, visually arresting music videos, including Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ and Weezer’s ‘Buddy Holly.’ Both of those videos are genuinely iconic, and Carrey could have taken a flyer on the young director. However, as they say, hindsight is 20/20.
Finding a comment from Jonze about how close he did or didn’t come to directing Ace Ventura 2 is almost impossible. In fact, it appears the only time the notoriously mischievous, willfully weird director did speak about it publicly; he had his tongue placed ever so absurdly in cheek. In the late ’90s, when asked about how he found himself talking to the Ace producers, Jonze deadpanned, “My stepdad sells juicers to a lot of people in Hollywood, and he knew Jim Carrey through his juicing connection. In Hollywood, all the big deals are made through juicing.”
