Jim Carrey Wants To Be The Grinch Again

Well, this is out of nowhere. Universal and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment say they’ve convinced Jim Carrey to return to his role of the Grinch in what would be a sequel to Howard’s 2000 movie, How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Negotiations with Carrey are underway, says THR; Howard would return to produce and direct.

It’s a bit of a shock because, out of all the roles Carrey has ever played, he’s repeatedly said the Grinch was the biggest pain, because of the heavy make-up involved. “It was an extremely excruciating process,” he’s recorded as saying. “The children were in my mind all the time. ‘It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids.’” However, he did say he’d consider reprising the role if they just used modern technology to mo-cap his normal body and just paint over it. “Now, with motion capture and things like that, I could be free to do other things. Anything is possible in this world.”

Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, and David Mandel have been hired to write the script. None of them wrote the original, but they WERE responsible for…gulp…the Mike Myers Cat in the Hat movie. That’s a legendary stinker…but these writers have since done scripts for Barry, Dave, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Veep, so….maybe they just had an off-day? We hope.

The bigger question is, what would a Grinch sequel even be about? The story’s over; the book has been told. The Grinch has reformed and he wouldn’t be a bad guy anymore. Seuss created two follow-ups for television: Halloween Is Grinch Night, a psychedelic prequel that probably wouldn’t work as a movie, and The Grinch Grinches The Cat In the Hat, also off-limits because WB is making a Cat in the Hat movie.

Also, it’d have to take place decades later due to Carrey’s age (though perhaps they could hide that as part of the mo-cap). Whatever happens, we have one solid assumption: we will more than likely get to see the half-Who, half-Grinch teenage children he had with Marsha May Whovier. Brace yourself because it won’t be pretty.