Brucifer, the satanic sequel to Bruce Almighty which never saw the light of day…
Jim Carrey liked the pitch, however, and even brought some ideas for this project.
Bruce Almighty, has just celebrated its 20th anniversary. Released in September 2003 in France, this comedy hosted by Jim Carrey will return this evening on TMC. Did you know that she almost had a funny outcome? Its screenwriters Steven Koren and Mark O’Keefe (who had also worked with Steve Oedekerk), revealed it to SyFy Wire in November 2022. They are not talking here about the one worn by Evan, played by Steve Carell and released in 2007 at the cinema, therefore. But of Brucifera story in which Jim Carrey’s character would have this time obtained the powers of Satan after the disappearance of his sweetheart, Grace (Jennifer Aniston).
“Jim and his manager wanted to do Brucifer, explains Koren. We pitched it to them, but he ultimately couldn’t do it because it was too much time after the first film. We would have made it a new big-budget comedy, and I don’t think the production wanted that. Well, it didn’t work, even though several people loved the pitch, including Jim.”
He adds, regarding this story with its dramatic starting point: “When you lose someone dear to you, you tend to lose faith in the process, as the world seems so unfair to you. That’s what would have happened with him. So we started with a very serious element, but we ‘would have written in a nice way at the cinema. The idea was certainly not to depress people. I think it helped scare the studio, but not Jim, who totally understood that we were going to make a big comedy based on that, and who believed in the fact that the audience could embrace this concept. He even collapsed in laughter while looking for a way to bring Grace back. He was laughing because we had the idea to bring her back in Jennifer Aniston, but he told us: ‘No, she has to come back as a zombie! Then little by little, we restore its beauty.’ We thought it was brilliant.”
Koren finally details that Brucifer was submitted to Universal in 2010, three years after the release ofevan almightyalways made by Tom Shadyacwhich with 174 million dollars in revenue, had recorded a disappointing box office score compared to that of Bruce Almighty (484 million four years earlier). In this sequel, Evan Baxter had to build a modern ark when God announced to him a gigantic climatic catastrophe.
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