Somewhere in the magical land of Hollywood exists a person who dreamed of making a sequel to Tom Shadyac’s Bruce Almighty from 2003. He dreamed of it so much in fact, that he could barely sleep a wink at night. “How can I make this happen?” he thought to himself often, as he would walk the beach every night after work. Then Morgan Freeman came to him, in the form of God, and asked him to build a film for which he can act in.
And that’s when it hit our poor studio executive guy. “That’s it – Bruce can build an ark this time!” But Bruce (Jim Carrey) wanted no part of it. “Damn, foiled!” the man exclaimed to the heavens. God came back down and said, “Do you think Noah gave up the first time he smashed his fingers with a hammer?”
This motivated the suit and he began pondering, “Who can be Bruce instead?” Thankfully, maybe even coincidentally, NBC’s “The Office” was on at that exact moment. “Steve Carell… people like him, his films make money… that’s it! Oh yeah, and he was in the first one too!”
With his ideas further in place, and a script written, he had everything he needed to get going. Everything, that is, except the $175,000,000 it would cost to fund this trip.
One studio executive said of his request, “You need how much? Are you making a trilogy?” Another asked, “How many explosions are going to be in this?”
The suit laughed at their questions and said, “No, no, you got it all wrong. It’s going to be Steve Carell, and he is going to have a really long beard. And there is going to be a very large boat. And cute animals all over the place!”
With his enthusiasm, they caved in and gave him the money. Fast forward many months later, the film would only take in about $32,000,000 opening weekend.
“He f****d us,” said the other executives at a meeting this morning. “How could we do this? This movie should have only cost us around $60,000,000… where did the money go?” The suit then kicked down the door, complete with long hair and beard, and exclaimed, “We built it, so they will come.”
For the most part, audiences were pretty smart this weekend. That isn’t to say that $32 million isn’t a lot, because it is but for this time of year and considering how much money the film cost, it’s not all that much.
Hopefully someone learned a valuable lesson: if you’re going to make a sequel to a film barely anyone remembers, lower the budget a bit. It might help your pocket out later in life.
It’s nice to be missed Tom. No, I was here man… lots of festival coverage going on and I didn’t want to over do the blog section.
You didn’t see this movie then I take it?
What I never got was the hubub about “It’s a Biblical movie and all the Christians will flock to it!”
Christain my a*s!
Nice satire, Mike! It’s been so long since we’ve heard from you I thought you were dead…or worse!
I was surprised to say the least. I expected this movie to be a huge hit. It’s a sequel to a popular movie, it stars Steve Carell, it’s Biblical, etc.
Doesn’t Morgan Freeman have a mustache and goatee?