Remember the wonderfully weird Bruce Almighty? The 2003 comedy, which is now considered to be one of Jim Carrey’s best movies, told the story of a television reporter, who suddenly received the powers of God (played by Morgan Freeman). And the results were pure hilarity and chaos, as the character's new abilities overtook his life. But what if the concept was taken a step further and in a sequel, he received the powers of Satan? That was the the very idea that Carrey and his colleagues apparently intended to use for a sequel, but it never saw the light (er… dark) of day.
The satanic sequel would have been called Brucifer (yes, really) and followed Jim Carrey’s Bruce Nolan turning to the forces of evil following the death of his wife, Grace (Jennifer Aniston). One of the movie’s screenwriters, Steve Koren, enlightened Syfy on the subject, saying this of Carrey’s involvement in the scrapped follow-up:
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.
Brucifer was apparently already being scripted by Koren and his Almighty co-writer, Mark O’Keefe, by the time their successful comedy hit theaters. The pair then officially pitched the idea to Universal Pictures back in 2010, but it “scared” the studio “a little bit,” especially because it sought to center on Bruce dealing with grief in a more serious manner while also injecting the big comedic elements audiences saw play out in its predecessor.
Universal likely didn’t bite because by that time, it had already made Evan Almighty. The spinoff centered on Bruce's co-worker, Evan Baxter, played by Steve Carell (who let the production fire up his hair for a Bruce Almighty scene that never made it into the finished movie). The 2007 comedy totally bombed, with the flick making around $175 million worldwide on nearly the same budget.
While the screenwriters recalled their time pitching the project to Jim Carrey however, Koren said the actor “was laughing his ass off” and thought audiences would connect with the comedy bits they had planned. Mark O’Keefe also said this:
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.
Steve Koren also shared that Jim Carrey built on their pitch of Jennifer Aniston being resurrected by adding that she should look like a zombie when Bruce first resurrects her. As the writers explained, they thought that was “brilliant.” It's unfortunate that none of this came to fruition, and it likely never will, especially considering Jim Carrey has mostly retired from acting.
While promoting Sonic the Hedgehog 2 earlier this year, Carrey told a reporter that unless the “angels bring some sort of script that’s written in gold ink that says it’s going to be really important for people to see,” he’s not actively pursuing further movie and TV roles. The star said he enjoys his quiet life, spending time utilizing his incredible painting talents and also feels he’s “done enough.” He also has high standards when it comes to considering doing sequels to his iconic roles. But hey, he did do two Sonic movies in the past few years, so we can’t totally rule out the possibility of Carrey coming back around on an idea he was once passionate about. And angels... could technically be involved in Brucifer, ya know?
While we imagine what could have been, you can check out Bruce Almighty by streaming it with a Peacock subscription.
