I did not expect this. THR reporting that Universal has greenlit a sequel to the 2000 live-action “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” with Jim Carrey in talks to return, while Ron Howard is expected to direct again.
The screenplay is being written by Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, and David Mandel, a comedy trio known for their work on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (at least that’s a positive). The team also wrote 2003’s “The Cat in the Hat” (that’s a negative).
The original 2000 film was a major blockbuster, becoming the highest-grossing domestic movie of that year. It ultimately earned more than $264M domestically and won an Oscar for Rick Baker and Gail Rowell-Ryan’s makeup, despite very mixed reviews.
I never thought Carrey would want to come back to this role. He has been quite outspoken about the ordeal he went through to get into makeup to become the Grinch; the process took around eight hours a day, and Carrey told Vulture last year that, after the first day of shooting, he reportedly considered quitting and giving back his $20M salary. He managed to push through the experience with, if you can believe it, guidance from a specialist who had trained CIA agents in resisting torture, and his situation improved further once the makeup process was reduced from around eight hours to about three hours per day.
A few years ago, Carrey said he was stepping away from acting and joked that he might only return if he received a “script from the angels” written in “gold ink” that felt truly meaningful. A few months later, he appeared in “Sonic the Hedgehog 3.” He later clarified more candidly that the real reason for his return wasn’t mystical inspiration, but a very large paycheck.
In fact, Carrey has not appeared in a non-Sonic movie in over ten years — his last original was in 2016’s “Dark Crimes.”
Meanwhile, Howard wrapped production on “Alone at Dawn,” starring Adam Driver and Anne Hathaway. His last few films have been struggles: “Eden,” which was finally theatrically distributed by Vertical this past August, bombed at the box office, and prior to that, Amazon/MGM released Howard’s well-received “Thirteen Lives” on Prime Video.
More to come…