TOM SHADYAC CREATES CARELL SPIN-OFF

Tom Shadyac wanted to create a spin-off film for the Evan Baxter character in Bruce Almighty.

Bruce Almighty director Tom Shadyac opted for a completely different God series with Evan Almighty instead of a sequel.

Even though he’s best buds with Jim Carrey who starred in Bruce Almighty as an average guy who is given God-like powers, he decided to give this new guy a chance with his own spin-off.

“It always felt more fruitful for us to do a separate chapter in the God series. So we worked with this guy named Steve Carell in the first one, I don’t know he has a chance of breaking out. Steve did such an amazing job in the first one. Everybody remembers the scenes. He kind of stole those scenes. He had some of the funniest stuff in the movie and we thought why not take that character and spin him out into a different movie.”

Shadyac describes the arc of the Evan Almighty story.

“And we had this idea for an arc where God would come to a person and say, ‘build an ark.’ And you can imagine the disruptive nature of that in our busy lives. And so we started with those two ideas, the ark and working with this new guy Steve Carell and that’s how it began.”

In the film Carell’s character the pompous Evan Baxter has taken the American dream to the extreme until he arks out in the movie and finds that everything he does has a cost. Evan Almighty opens Friday in theaters.