‘Bruce Almighty’ Writers Wanted to Make Sequel with Jim Carrey as Satan and a Zombie Jennifer Aniston

The screenwriters behind 2003’s Bruce Almighty revealed their pitch for a sequel called Brucifer that “a lot of people loved it, including Jim [Carrey]”

Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston in Bruce Almighty (2003)

Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty character almost went to hell and back in a sequel that never came to fruition.

The screenwriters who came up with the story for the 2003 comedy, Steve Koren and Mark O’Keefe, revealed to Syfy their idea for a followup movie that they pitched in 2010 and “a lot of people loved.” Sadly, it “just didn’t work out for some reason,” according to Koren.

Bruce Almighty was about TV news reporter Bruce (Carrey) who questions God after not landing an anchor position — only to have God (Morgan Freeman) let Bruce take on his powers to see if he can handle the responsibilities better. Jennifer Aniston costarred as his girlfriend Grace, and the cast also included Steve Carell, Lisa Ann Walter and Philip Baker Hall.

(Director Tom Shadyac returned for the Carell-led Evan Almighty, which wasn’t as big of a hit when it released in theaters in 2007.)

The proposed sequel, titled Brucifer, would have seen now-wife Grace die, leading Bruce to align with Satan for the power to bring her back from the dead. O’Keefe said Lucifer would have likely been played by Freeman or Carrey.

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Morgan Freeman and Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty (2003)

Said Koren, “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.”

Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty (2003)

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“I remember when we pitched it, [Carrey] 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,” added Koren.

O’Keefe explained, “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.”