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Bruce Almighty
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tom Shadyac
Screenplay by	Steve Koren Mark O'Keefe Steve Oedekerk
Story by	Steve Koren Mark O'Keefe
Produced by	Tom Shadyac Jim Carrey James D. Brubaker Michael Bostick Steve Koren Mark O'Keefe
Starring	Jim Carrey Morgan Freeman Jennifer Aniston Philip Baker Hall
Cinematography	Dean Semler
Edited by	Scott Hill
Music by	John Debney
Production companies	Spyglass Entertainment Shady Acres Pit Bull Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures (United States and Canada) Spyglass Entertainment (International)
Release dates	May 14, 2003 (2003-05-14) (Hollywood) May 23, 2003 (2003-05-23) (United States)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$81 million
Box office	$484.6 million

Bruce Almighty is a 2003 American fantasy comedy film directed by Tom Shadyac and written by Steve Koren, Mark O'Keefe and Steve Oedekerk. The film stars Jim Carrey as Bruce Nolan, a down-on-his-luck television reporter who complains to God (played by Morgan Freeman) that he is not doing his job correctly and is offered the chance to try being God himself for one week. It co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Philip Baker Hall and Catherine Bell. The film is Shadyac and Carrey's third collaboration, after Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) and Liar Liar (1997).

When released in American theaters on May 23, 2003, Bruce Almighty received mixed reviews from critics but was a box-office success and grossed $86.4 million in its opening weekend, a Memorial Day record at the time. The film surprised the industry's pundits when it beat The Matrix Reloaded the following weekend. It went on to gross $484 million worldwide, becoming the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2003.

Evan Almighty—a spin-off sequel focusing on Steve Carell's character, with Shadyac and Oedekerk returning to direct and write, respectively, and Freeman also reprising his role—was released on June 22, 2007.

Plot

Bruce Nolan is a television field reporter for Eyewitness News on WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York, but desires to be a news anchorman, succeeding the retiring Pete Fineman. When Bruce's rival Evan Baxter is given the job, a vulgar on-camera outburst leads to Bruce's dismissal from the station. After a series of misfortunes, Bruce complains to God that "He's the one that should be fired". Bruce receives a message on his pager, which takes him to an empty warehouse where he meets God. God offers to give Bruce his powers to prove that he is doing the job correctly. God tells Bruce that he cannot tell others he has God's powers to avoid the media attention, nor can he use the powers to alter free will. Bruce is initially jubilant with the powers, using them for personal gains, such as regaining his previous job and impressing his girlfriend, Grace Connelly.

Bruce finds ways of using his powers around Buffalo to cause miraculous events to occur at otherwise mundane events that he covers, such as discovering Jimmy Hoffa's body during a segment on police training, or causing a meteorite to harmlessly land near a cook-off, earning him the nickname "Mr. Exclusive". Bruce then causes Evan to embarrass himself on-air, causing Evan to be fired in favor of Bruce as the new anchor. Bruce begins to hear voices in his head and re-encounters God, who explains the voices are prayers that Bruce must deal with. Bruce creates a computerized email-like system to receive the prayers and respond but finds that the influx is far too many for him to handle and sets the program to answer every prayer Yes automatically.

Bruce attends a party celebrating his promotion. When Grace arrives, she finds Bruce kissing his co-anchor, Susan Ortega, after she forcefully comes on to him, and quickly leaves. Bruce follows her, trying to use his powers to convince her to stay but cannot influence her free will. As Bruce looks around, he realizes that Buffalo has fallen into chaos due to his actions: parts of the city believe the Apocalypse is nearly upon Earth due to the meteor strikes, while a large number of people, all having prayed to win the multi-million dollar lottery and received a meager amount in return, have started rioting in the streets. Bruce returns to God, who explains that he cannot solve all the problems and Bruce must figure out a way himself. Bruce then starts to help others without using his powers, including giving Evan his job back. He returns to his computer at home and goes about answering prayers earnestly. As he reads through them, he finds prayers from Grace, wishing for his success and well-being. As Bruce reads it, another prayer from Grace arrives, this one wishing not to be in love with him anymore.

Stunned by this development, Bruce walks alone on a highway, asking God to take back his powers and leaving his fate in His hands. Bruce is suddenly hit by a truck and regains consciousness in a white void. God appears and asks Bruce what he really wants; Bruce admits that he only wants to make sure Grace finds a man that will make her happy. God agrees, and Bruce finds himself in the hospital, where his doctors help him recover. Grace arrives at the hospital and reconciles with Bruce. Following his recovery, Bruce returns to his field reporting job, but decides to take more pleasure in the simple stories in Buffalo instead.

Cast

• Jim Carrey as Bruce Nolan
• Morgan Freeman as God
• Jennifer Aniston as Grace Connelly, Bruce's girlfriend
• Catherine Bell as Susan Ortega, Bruce's co-anchor
• Steve Carell (credited as Steven Carell) as Evan Baxter, Bruce's rival
• Lisa Ann Walter as Debbie Connelly, Grace's sister
• Philip Baker Hall as Jack Baylor
• Nora Dunn as Ally Loman
• Eddie Jemison as Bobby
• Sally Kirkland as Anita Mann
• Lou Felder as Pete Fineman, Eyewitness News veteran anchorman
• Paul Satterfield as Dallas Coleman
• Micah Stephen Williams as boy on bike
• Tony Bennett as himself
• Carlos Sánchez as Juan Valdez
• John Murphy as himself
• Madeline Lovejoy as Zoe
• Noel Gugliemi as Hood
• Annie Wersching as woman at party

Production

In June 2000, it was announced that Universal Pictures had paid over $1 million for a spec script titled Bruce Almighty with the intention of positioning the script as a directing vehicle for Tom Shadyac via his Universal based production company Shady Acres. Jim Carrey signed on to star in March 2002 with Steve Oedekerk rewriting the script. Previously, Carrey had been slated to star in another comedy for Universal titled 'Dog Years' to be directed by Gary Ross, but following that film's cancellation, Universal was eager to get Carrey onto another project.

Filming of Buffalo was done in the "New York Street" at Universal Studios Hollywood. The restaurant with Tony Bennett was filmed at Cicada, in the James Oviatt Building, downtown Los Angeles. The spa scene with Jennifer Aniston was filmed in the Shoin building at The Japanese Garden in Los Angeles.

Release

Bruce Almighty was released on May 23, 2003, by Universal Pictures. Universal handled distribution in the United States and Canada (although they were originally planned to distribute the movie worldwide) while Spyglass Entertainment handled sales rights internationally. Buena Vista International acquired distribution rights in a majority of regions except in Scandinavia, Portugal and Japan, where it was handled by distributors who already held deals with Spyglass in those respective territories. United International Pictures and Pony Canyon respectively handled theatrical and home video rights in Japan, while SF Studios handled Scandinavian distribution through subsidiaries AB Svensk Filmindustri in Sweden, SF Film A/S in Denmark and FS Film Oy in Finland.

Home media

Bruce Almighty was released on DVD and VHS on November 25, 2003. The DVD version features separate widescreen and fullscreen versions, along with Dolby Digital and DTS audio tracks.

Reception

Box office

Bruce Almighty earned $67.9 million during its opening weekend, which made it the highest for a Jim Carrey film, surpassing How the Grinch Stole Christmas. This record would be held until the opening of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 2022. At the time, it was one of three Universal films of 2003 to make opening weekends of $50 million, joining 2 Fast 2 Furious and Hulk. In its first four days, the film generated a total of $86.4 million, becoming the second-highest Memorial Day weekend debut, behind The Lost World: Jurassic Park. It opened in the number one spot at the box office, beating The Matrix Reloaded. The film would be dethroned by Finding Nemo in its second weekend, declining by 45.1% and making $37.3 million.

The film was released in the United Kingdom on June 27, 2003, and topped the country's box office that weekend. There, it made a total of $8.3 million, beating Batman Forever to have the highest opening weekend for a Jim Carrey film in the country.

Bruce Almighty joined The Matrix Reloaded, Finding Nemo, X2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to become the first five films to earn over $200 million at the box office in one summer season. By the end of its theatrical run, the film had made $242 million domestically and a total $484 million worldwide, making it Aniston and Carrey's highest-grossing film worldwide, as well as the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2003.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 48% based on 191 reviews, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Carrey is hilarious in the slapstick scenes, but Bruce Almighty gets bogged down in treacle." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, calling it: "A charmer, the kind of movie where Bruce learns that while he may not ever make a very good God, the experience may indeed make him a better television newsman." Ebert praised Aniston's performance: "Aniston, as a sweet kindergarten teacher and fiancée, shows again (after The Good Girl) that she really will have a movie career." Variety's Robert Koehler gave the film a mixed review: "There's remarkably little done with a premise snatched from high-concept heaven, adding yet another file to the growing cabinet of under-realized comedies." The Los Angeles Times gave it a negative review and called it "not so mighty".

Chuck Rudolph of Slant Magazine said, "In several ways, the movie is an apathetic revision of The Truman Show, with Carrey starring as both Truman and Christof."

Controversies

The film was banned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and Qatar because of its portrayal of God as an ordinary man and its being blasphemous to Islam. Bans in both Malaysia and Egypt were eventually lifted after the nations' censorship boards gave the film their highest rating (18-PL in the case of Malaysia).

As God contacts Bruce using an actual phone number rather than one in the standard fictional 555 telephone exchange, several people and groups sharing this number received hundreds of phone calls from people wanting to talk to God, including a church in North Carolina, US (where the minister was named Bruce), a Florida woman who threatened to sue Universal Pictures, a pastor in northern Wisconsin and a man running a sandwich shop in Manchester, England. The producers noted that the number (776-2323) was not in use in the area code (716, which was never specified on screen) in the film's story, but did not check anywhere else. For the home video and television versions of the film, the number was changed to the fictional 555–0123.

Accolades

Soundtrack

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic

The soundtrack was released on June 3, 2003, by Varèse Sarabande. Tracks 8-13 are from the score composed by John Debney, performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony (conducted by Pete Anthony) with Brad Dechter and Sandy De Crescent.

Track listing

1. "One of Us" – Joan Osborne
2. "God Shaped Hole" – Plumb
3. "You're a God" – Vertical Horizon
4. "The Power" – Snap!
5. "A Little Less Conversation" – Elvis vs. JXL
6. "The Rockafeller Skank" – Fatboy Slim
7. "God Gave Me Everything" – Mick Jagger featuring Lenny Kravitz
8. "If I Ruled the World" – Tony Bennett
9. "AB Positive"
10. "Walking on Water"
11. "Seventh at Seven"
12. "Bruce Meets God"
13. "Bruce's Prayer"
14. "Grace's Prayer"

Related media

• Arai En 305-il Kadavul, a Tamil-language remake
• God Tussi Great Ho, an Indian remake
• The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, a spin-off documentary television series starring Morgan Freeman

Sequel

A sequel and spin-off, titled Evan Almighty, was released on June 22, 2007, with Steve Carell reprising his role as Evan Baxter and Morgan Freeman returning to his role as God. Although Shadyac returned to direct the sequel, neither Carrey nor Aniston were involved with the film, and Carrey's character, Bruce, is never mentioned in the film. The film was a critical and commercial failure.

Before Evan Almighty materialized, screenwriters Steve Koren and Mark O’Keefe envisioned a sequel with the title Brucifer. The proposed sequel involved Aniston's character dying and Carrey's character, under the weight of his grief, takes on Satan's powers, which he uses to resurrect Aniston's character.

References

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External links

• Official website
• Bruce Almighty at IMDb

• 2003 films
• 2000s fantasy comedy films
• 2003 comedy films
• 2003 fantasy films
• American fantasy comedy films
• Censored films
• 2000s English-language films
• Films about Christianity
• Films about God
• Films about television
• Films about wish fulfillment
• Films directed by Tom Shadyac
• Films scored by John Debney
• Films set in Buffalo, New York
• Films shot in Buffalo, New York
• Films shot in Los Angeles
• Films with screenplays by Steve Oedekerk
• Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award–winning films
• Religious comedy films
• Religious controversies in film
• Spyglass Entertainment films
• Universal Pictures films
• 2000s American films
• Buena Vista International films
• English-language fantasy comedy films
• Teen Choice Award winning films