Unmade Bruce Almighty Sequel Would Have Seen Bruce Get Satan’s Powers

Bruce Almighty was a big hit in Jim Carrey’s career, and an unmade sequel idea had Bruce getting the powers of the devil. Steve Koren and Mark O’Keefe, who wrote the 2003 comedy about Carrey’s news reporter who gains the power of God, spoke with Syfy for an interview in which they revealed they pitched a follow-up named Brucifer which would have seen Bruce gain the powers of Satan.

The film would have seen Bruce lose his faith and pick up the devil’s power after his wife Grace (Jennifer Aniston) died. Carrey was on board with the film, which was initially pitched the night after Bruce Almighty opened. But it stalled out and the studio wasn’t interested after 2007’s Evan Almighty failed.

You can see some highlights from the interview below:

Koren on the film not happening: “[Jim Carrey’s] 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.”

Koren on the plot: “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.”

Koren on pitching Bruce resurrecting Grace: “I remember when we pitched it, [Jim] 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 on how the story would have played out: “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.”