The Satanic sequel Jim Carrey wished he could make
Throughout his remarkable career, Jim Carrey has been delivering his unique brand of comedy that still manages to pull at the heartstrings and on occasion, he’s delivering a commendable dramatic performance or two in the shape of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But for the most part, it’s comedy that Carrey will always be known for.
There have been countless classic comedy moments with Carrey at their centre, from his extraordinary year of 1994 in which he starred in Ace Ventura, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber, to his other efforts like Liar Liar and Me Myself and Irene. As Carrey moved further into the 21st century, he continued to give the goods with movies such as Bruce Almighty.
The 2003 fantasy comedy might not be at the top of the pile when it comes to Carrey’s best, but it appears as though it was a role that he cherished. Carrey plays a down-on-his-luck TV journalist who prays to God to have his powers for just one week, and when his wish magically comes true, he finds that having such divine power is not always so easy.
Interestingly, Carrey had big ideas for Bruce and wanted to take him from his heavenly deeds into something far darker and more underworld than any fans of his unique take on comedy could ever imagine. In fact, Carrey once spoke with the Bruce Almighty team to discuss how his character might be able to take on the powers of Satan rather than God.
When one of the film’s screenwriters, Steve Koren, spoke to Syfy about Carrey’s want to continue with the film, he said, “His manager and he 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.”
Koren was said to be working on a script that was eventually pitched to Universal Pictures in 2010, but the studio didn’t seem interested. There was more of a serious tone to the narrative, with Bruce dealing with grief after his wife’s death, and the original’s comedy wasn’t quite as prevalent.
Also a factor was the fact that Universal had already made a sequel of sorts in the shape of Evan Almighty, starring Steve Carell. The follow-up didn’t make half the impression that the first movie did and only just about managed to make back its $175million budget, which is primarily why Universal wanted to pass on the Satanic version.
Mark O’Keefe, another screenwriter on the original film, went on to explain how the ‘Brucifer’ sequel might have gone down. “It was going to be the Trials of Job, essentially,” he said. “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.”
