2003 comedy Bruce Almighty remains the biggest box office hit of Jim Carrey’s entire career after earning almost $485 million globally, which is well over $100 million more than any other movie he’s appeared in. It isn’t his best starring role by any means, with the plot eventually becoming bogged down in schmaltzy sentimentality, but the actor is on top form as he barrels his way through the story pulling out every trick in his playbook.
The 58 year-old’s career has never reached those sort of heights again, but he was incredibly fortunate to have turned down the sequel. Evan Almighty is still the most expensive comedy in history, with Universal granting the production a mammoth $175 million budget despite the leading man, main drawing card and driving force behind the first installment’s success not being involved.
Steve Carrell’s first starring role in a feature film couldn’t have gone much worse, getting savaged by critics and bombing spectacularly hard, failing to recoup the budget and losing the studio up to $100 million once the numbers had been crunched. However, insider Daniel Richtman is now claiming that this hasn’t deterred them, as a third movie is in the works, and Carrey is said to be interested in returning for it.
Of course, the actor has been less than prolific as of late, with a scenery-chewing turn reliving his 1990s heyday as Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog marking his first big screen appearance in four years, but the lure of a sizable paycheck and a return to more familiar territory could realistically be enough to entice him back for the proposed third entry in the Almighty trilogy. Let’s just hope that if this project does get off the ground, things go a lot smoother than they did with the second outing.
