Everything Everywhere All at Once was perhaps this year’s breakout star for A24, which is an impressive distinction given the additional presence of X, Pearl, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and the upcoming Darren Aronofsky drama The Whale. Indeed, the combined penmanship and directorial efforts of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert scored a massive victory with their subversive arthouse spectacle, somehow managing to twist multiverse nuances into something delightfully original.
But, in the grand calculus of said multiverse, there perhaps exists a dimension where Everything Everywhere was not, in fact, their strangest film (although, Swiss Army Man at least comes close to giving it a run for its money in our world). This aforementioned alternate dimension is also one where legendary comedian Jim Carrey got his way.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kwan, sitting alongside the likes of fellow creatives Jordan Peele, Rian Johnson, Martin McDonagh, Chinonye Chukwu, and Tony Kushner, was asked what the strangest writing job he ever took on was, and he recounted a tale involving Carrey and Paranormal Activity.
Kwan first revealed that Jim Carrey had approached he and Scheinert early on in their careers, hoping to get them on board for a Paranormal Activity-inspired found-footage horror comedy.
Basically, the set of Dumb and Dumber was famously a haunted set — it was in the same hotel that The Shining was inspired by — and he’s like, “The whole time we were shooting, things were breaking, people were getting hurt, doors were swinging, and it felt haunted. We’re going to shoot Dumb and Dumber To, and I want you guys to do a found-footage horror comedy on the set. While we’re filming, you guys are going to make a feature-length, behind-the-scenes video that slowly becomes a horror film.”
The Daniels would go on to excitedly dive into the project, script outline and all, but unfortunately, shooting a film on the set of another film didn’t fly with their producer, so the project never materialized.
This may be one idea the Daniels won’t ever be able to get off the ground, at least not in the context of the Dumb and Dumber To set. But, with a five-year film deal with Universal Pictures all signed off on, the only way is up for this exciting duo, and who knows? A phone call to Jim Carrey and a light rejiggering of the original idea just might birth the essence of what the comedian was gunning for way back when.