The comedic goofiness of Jim Carrey has brought life to some of the more strange and silly characters in cinema. We’ve even seen him put his spin on comic book characters such as Riddler in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, Stanley Ipkiss in The Mask and more recently as Colonel Stars and Stripes in Kick-Ass 2. But, arguably what could have been his greatest comic book villain role is left as a 'what if'. Carrey might have have played alien supercomputer, Brainiac, in the 1990s canceled movie Superman Lives.
Carrey came pretty close too. If the movie had gone into production, he would have had a shot. Concept artist, Rolf Mohr recently shared what had happened during his time on the defunct Tim Burton movie, Superman Lives, and included a Jim Carrey name drop.
Comic Book Movie reports that Mohr explained the character in detail, and the difficulty he had creating concept art without ever actually seeing a script. He had to create art based on very vague descriptions, was not even told who had written the screenplay or even that Tim Burton was going to direct. All he knew was who they were considering for the role of Brainiac.
"At the time I had no idea who had written it or that Tim Burton was on board to direct, but they told me Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman were being considered for Brainiac."
Brainiac is a robotic supervillain most well-known for shrinking the city of Kandor before Krypton’s destruction. He’s usually depicted as a green-skinned humanoid. Though his origin is often changed in the comics, he is known to be Superman’s most high-tech nemesis, and one of the main villains aside from Lex Luthor. And despite any change in origin, his skin always stays green. With that being said, Jim Carrey was a shoe in. For some reason, Carrey seems to play a lot of characters with green color schemes.
The most obvious being his role in The Mask, where Carrey’s character transforms into a green, grinning trickster.
Also, his portrayal of Riddler in Batman Forever included a bright green leotard and green eye mask.
Don’t forget the holiday favorite. in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Mr. Grinch is as green as can be.
Even as Colonel Stars and Stripes in Kick-Ass 2, Carrey rocked the green camouflage.
It’s seems appropriate to cast Carrey as the green Brainiac, if only for his own aesthetic value. Hopefully Brainiac will make an appearance in a DC movie real soon, and hey, we’ve already got a pretty solid argument for casting Jim Carrey.
Otherwise, you can see Superman in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice hitting theaters March 25, 2016.
