In a sequel to the 2003 comedy-drama, Jim Carrey was almost cast in the planned sequel to ‘Bruce Almighty‘. In the film, Jim took the powers and authority of God played by Morgan Freeman. In the next installment, he was would take up the job of the underworld’s King, Lucifer. After ‘Bruce Almighty’ first hit cinemas in May 2003 it made a whopping collection of $500 million. Fans were in raptures at the comedian-actor Jim Carrey’s constant rants. The movie even got a pseudo-sequel in 2007, ‘Evan Almighty‘, which had the same main cast except for Jennifer Aniston. The movie is a comedy comfort even today and streams on the subscription platform, Peacock.
Jim heard the idea of Bruce becoming Satan in the next part which made him interested. There was much potential in the spark of an idea with new cosmic powers and Bruce’s farce comedy. The movie’s screenwriters, Steve Koren and Mark O’Keefe came up with the idea of an underworld ruler Bruce on the opening night of ‘Bruce Almighty’. However the sequel, Brucifer never got through production.
Bruce Becomes Lucifer
On the opening night of ‘Bruce Almighty’, the screenwriters of the movie approached the producer to further expand the film franchise. ‘Brucifer‘ would continue the unsatisfactory life of Jim’s character as a loser reporter always getting the fuzzy end of the day. However, the problem was how Bruce who has witnessed the divinity of God would be convinced to take the position of Satan. One can find the answers in the Old Testament scripture, The Book of Job.
Jim’s character Bruce has a complete life. He is a field reporter and has a girlfriend, played by none other than the beautiful Jennifer Aniston. But in one fell swoop like Job, everything is taken away from Bruce and Jennifer dies. O’Keef 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.”
Grace’s death will surely make Bruce question God’s “mysterious ways”. In desperation to get back the love of his life, Bruce will ultimately approach the King of the underworld, Lucifer. The writers even had a humorous intention to make Jennifer look like a zombie. According to SYFY, the screenwriter Koren said, “No, she has to look like a zombie first, and then we’ll make her beautiful again. We thought that was brilliant.”
O’Keef and Koren claimed that it was another cost-effective sequel. Many directors have already experimented with Biblical tales like Devil’s Advocate and Exodus. So Carrey was confident after his current success that the sequel might be a hit.
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Why The Sequel Was Never Made?
Producers before the release of ‘Bruce Almighty‘ were afraid that it could hurt the religious sentiments of the viewers. “We went out of our way to not ever address a specific god of a specific religion,” said Koren. But the movie was a huge success. People responded well to the innocent mocking of God. Even Carrey was enthusiastic about the ideas. So why wasn’t the sequel made? O’Keefe and Koren made the proposal to Universal pictures in 2010. But the movie’s pseudo-sequel, Evan Almighty did not receive a similar reception as the first one, and by that time the production wasn’t confident with going with the idea.
Koren shared a time when he was at a Zoom meeting with O’Keef. “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 had said. However, the screenwriters do not regret that the idea never got to make the screen.
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