Morgan Freeman steps into the role of God one more time and Steve Carell's back as Evan Baxter, the newscaster Jim Carrey picked on like crazy in the 2003 comedy hit Bruce Almighty, in Evan Almighty. Directed by Tom Shadyac, this sequel finds happily married family man Evan Baxter transitioning from the world of journalism to politics. But changing occupations isn't the only stressful event going on in Evan's life. It seems God's chosen Evan as his new Noah and wants the new Congressman to prepare for a great flood by building an ark.
On the Rumored $200 Million Budget: Laughing, Shadyac said, “Just the hairdressing alone was like $98 million. The budget thing kind of makes me smile because Spider-Man just cost around $300. We’re $170 plus I think is the official figure, although I don’t even know what it was. We’re one of the cheaper summer movies and yet we’re a comedy so it’s unique. But we’re much more than a comedy, as you know we’re a Biblical epic. We had an ark, we had thousands of animals, [and] we had a flood. That helped.
If you look at the screen I could point you specifically to where the money goes: CG generation of water, composite shots that are 100 layers thick and deep. And the good news is ticket prices aren’t going up because of this movie. People will get more for their money, and in this very competitive summer climate we’re glad that we can offer a lot for the dollar. I’m also glad that a comedy is being given this kind of belief by a studio; that a comedy is being taken this seriously. Again, we’re a Bible story, too. We’re a Bible parable. We’re not just ‘a comedy.’ It’s not two guys on a road trip behind the wheel of a Pinto, although I think I may do that movie. It sounds good.”
Turning to the Noah's Ark Story for Inspiration: Shadyac knew from the beginning that's where the sequel would head. “I was involved in the original idea," said Shadyac. "Day one we started writing the script, we knew we were doing a contemporized Noah’s Ark story. It’s another chapter in the God series, so we wanted to find a theme to hang it on. Every parable has a theme; every parable is going somewhere. You have to arc out your characters and they have to learn their lessons. ‘Arc out,’ yes, yes, yes, didn’t want to be obvious. So, yeah, from day one. “
Focusing on Steve Carell’s Character: “You know, we originally thought about this with Jim [Carrey]. You know, Bruce 2: The Ark was going to be the name of that. We even wrote a draft. Oedekerk, with myself involved, we wrote a draft for Jim but Jim couldn’t decide either way. But I think ultimately he felt that his character had kind of arced out. There it is again. He’d kind of arked out. So he felt his character was kind of done. He had learned his lesson and we as filmmakers felt, and as a studio, felt there’s more stories to be told than just Bruce. You know in the bible how many stories where God visits someone and has a story to tell? So we think now there’s more potential down the road. Whether we tap that potential, we’ll see.
Steve came into it right after Jim said, ‘Mmmm, can’t decide.’ And we thought about Steve. My agent, Dan Maloney, had brought him up as a possible choice if Jim didn’t want to do the movie, six months before we chose him. I thought, ‘Okay, that’s interesting.’ He was brilliant in Bruce. He stole the movie. He stole the scenes he was in, certainly not the movie. That’s Jim’s movie, but he stole scenes. I said, ‘Well what was his Virgin movie like? I heard he was good.’ And so I got an early screening of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and thought, ‘This guy can carry a movie.’
I had a conversation with him about it and I don’t think I’ve ever had this happen before. I pitched him the idea and told him the story and he said, ‘I’m in.’ I said, ‘Well, you know your people are going to want to get involved and you may want to have script approval.’ And he said, ‘No, I’m in. I’m in. I want to do the movie.’ I’ve never had that happen before meaning he said, ‘I trust you. I trust you, I trust Steve Oedekerk. I trust your creative team. I’ve worked with you; I want to do the movie.’”
Letting Wanda Sykes Go Off the Script: Sykes agreed to doing the film after Shadyac told her she would be free to improvise. “Wanda is a genius," explaind Shadyac. "I mean, I started calling her Rita Almighty. That woman rocked it so hard. Once I met with Wanda, and my editor worked with her on another movie, I knew that it would be insane not to tap into her genius. So about 90 percent of what you see of Wanda is Wanda. Not necessarily the story lines that are driving things forward, but if you’re laughing, I’ll bet that’s Wanda.”
The Challenges of Building an Ark: “When we thought of this originally…,’Hey, it would be cool to have a modern day ark. What if God came and told you to build an ark? Oh man that would be cool, especially if you were working in a really serious job.’ And then you get there a couple of months before we start shooting and you go, ‘Oh, we have to do this, actually have to build an ark.’ You realize that that idea now has to come to life. The answer in one word is help. We needed lots of help. It’s the most extreme home makeover show ever done. We needed builders and engineers and structural engineers, because Noah didn’t have to worry about putting a film crew on his boat. We did. The equipment’s very heavy. How does that work? Where are the weak points, the structural deficiencies? So we had a lot of help.
We also had to figure out how Steve [Carell] was going to participate in the building of this. He actually had to learn how to build a boat. We know about the keel now, the rib pieces, skinning the ark, how all that works. So I’m the guy to come teach that class in Sunday school, not that anybody wants to see it.”
Page 2: Tom Shadyac on Divine Intervention and Steve Carell's Injury
