A brilliant Bruce Almighty 2 pitch from the original movie's writers saw Jim Carrey become Satan. The 2003 comedy starred Carrey as Bruce Nolan, a down-on-his-luck television reporter who, for one week, is granted the opportunity to be God (played by a perfectly cast Morgan Freeman) and gains the power of omnipotence. Carrey's star power combined with the comedy's intriguing premise resulted in an immense box office success, but despite being one of the highest-grossing comedies of all time, Bruce Almighty never released a proper sequel. Evan Almighty, a spinoff focusing on Steve Carrell's character, was released in 2007 and was a colossal critical and commercial flop.
During a recent interview with Jim Carrey movie opened in theaters, though it wasn't until 2010 that Koren and O'Keefe officially approached Universal with the idea, but by that time, Evan Almighty had already shattered hopes of a true Bruce Almighty sequel. Read what Koren and O'Keefe revealed about their pitch below:
Koren: 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. You tend to lose your faith when the world seems unfair, and that's what got him. It came from a serious place, but we were gonna write it in a very friendly way. We certainly didn’t want to depress people. So I think that scared [the studio] a little bit, but to Jim's credit, he totally understood that we were going to make a big comedy and thought everybody would connect with it. I when we pitched it, he was laughing his ass off. Because we had her come back as Jennifer Aniston. He said, "No, she has to look like a zombie first and then we'll make her beautiful again." We thought that was brilliant.
O'Keefe: 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... Totally different themes, of course, but the beats everyone enjoys.
Will Bruce Almighty 2 Ever Happen?
There have been rumblings of Bruce Almighty 2 being in development since 2012 and perhaps Koren and O'Keefe going public with their exciting sequel idea could start a push to finally get the project made. Not only did their sequel idea see Bruce becoming the Devil, but his wife Grace (played by Jennifer Aniston) die and turn into a zombie. This was actually the sequel's inciting incident which caused Bruce to throw in with Satan, as he needed his requisite power to resurrect Grace.
No matter how exciting Koren and O'Keefe's pitch may sound now, it's unlikely Bruce Almighty 2 will ever happen. Carrey recently announced plans to retire from acting after Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Bruce Nolan is one of Carrey's most iconic comedic roles in his career of many, and it just wouldn't be right to recast the role. Besides, it would be almost impossible to imagine anyone else portraying the television reporter's transformation into Satan.
Even if Carrey was willing to come out of retirement and return for Bruce Almighty 2, it's unlikely Universal would change its mind about another follow-up, especially with Evan Almighty already biting the studio once. The prevalence of successful comedies has only decreased in the years since Universal initially ed on the intriguing sequel idea. So it's even more unlikely now that a studio takes a chance on Bruce Almighty 2 given the current state of comedies, especially if Carrey isn't attached.
Source: SyFy Wire
