Yeah, that’s been working for you…

Following in the awesomely successful footprints of Son of the Mask and Evan Almighty, Hollywood is cannily putting into production another Jim Carrey-less sequel to another big Jim Carrey hit.

To be fair, this time I think they may be on to something.  Josh Flitter will star as the jr. high school-aged son of the (no doubt completely absent) Ace Ventura.  When his Moms is accused of stealing a valuable rare panda cub, he decides to follow in his father’s footsteps.

I think it’s smart that they are going after another audience entirely rather than try to duplicated the first two films with less-appealing parts.  And if (a HUGE if) they manage to hit the right note, this could appeal to kids and older audiences, ala Spy Kids.  Plus, pandas are cute.  There, I said it.

Let me offer the producers one piece of advise:  Don’t spend $200 million dollars making this film.  You know, because.

  • Because there’s no such thing as a successful big budget comedy? Can anyone think of one?

  • I was mostly referring to Evan Almighty, which apparently via production problems ballooned its budget up to the $175-200 million mark, and is now a titanic bomb.

    I’m not sure why’d you have to spend a huge amount on a comedy, unless it’s also an action or sci-fi film or something.

  • I’m not sure why’d you have to spend a huge amount on a comedy, unless it’s also an action or sci-fi film or something.

    There’s actually an article in one of the recent issues of Time magazine about comedies and their importance to the business end of Hollywood: one of the guys they talk to (I forget who) says that, yeah, it’s always nice to strike it rich with a Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, but, when all else fails, you can count on comedies to always do pretty well.

    Still, I agree: the budget you mentioned for Evan Almighty does seem a little high for a comedy.