Evan Almighty

The film's screenplay was originally titled The Passion of the Ark and was written by Bobby Florsheim and Josh Stolberg.[3] It became the subject of a seven-studio bidding war in April 2004. The script was sold to Sony Pictures in a deal worth $2.5 million plus a percentage of the profits, a record for a spec script from previously unproduced writers.[4] Universal Studios immediately made a deal to co-produce the script with Sony and have Steve Oedekerk rewrite it into the sequel to Bruce Almighty. Steve Oedekerk had been involved with Bruce Almighty as an executive producer and co-writer of the screenplay (with Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe, who wrote the story). The studio later discarded the original The Passion of the Ark script completely, and Oedekerk fashioned a new script from scratch (only he received final credit on the finished film as screenwriter). Jim Carrey was asked to reprise his role as Bruce in the sequel and, when he declined, director Tom Shadyac convinced Steve Carell to accept the leading role.[5] Shadyac, reflecting on the first film, stated "[Carell] delivered some of the funniest stuff in the movie. We thought, 'Why not take that character and spin him off into a different film?'"[1]

Jim Carrey declined to reprise his role from the original Bruce Almighty. Although Carrey did act in a sequel to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, he has said that he is "not a big fan of doing the same character twice."[6] This marked the third time a sequel has been made to a film for which Carrey declined to reprise his role—the others being Dumb and Dumberer and Son of the Mask.

The initial budget, at approximately $140 million, led Evan Almighty to become the most expensive comedy film ever made. Added costs such as set construction, visual effects, and problems with filming multiple animals in a controlled location brought the budget up to $175 million.[7] Once marketing for the film was also included, the film's entire spend was estimated to be around $200 million.[8] The ballooning budget caused Sony to drop the project and hand it over entirely to Universal Studios.[7] Part of the budget was Carell's payroll, where he earned a reported $5 million for his leading role.[6] The Virginia Film Office estimates the film brought $20–25 million to Virginia, with the majority of it in the Charlottesville area.[9] Universal defended the cost of the film, saying it was "designed as a four-quadrant film, and therefore poised for bigger [box office] returns than typical comedies."[10]

The ark being prepared for filming a scene

Construction of the ark began in January 2006 and the scenes involving the ark were shot in a Crozet, Virginia subdivision called Old Trail.[1] The ark was designed to meet the actual measurements of the biblical ark, measuring 450 feet (137 m) long, 80 feet (24 m) wide, and 51 feet (16 m) high.[6] The ark's layout was also based on pictures in several children's books that crew members had read in their childhoods.[1] When the characters were filmed during the day building the ark or were on location elsewhere, crew members would further construct the ark at night.[1] A concrete base was built to support the weight of the large ark; after filming was completed, the ark was taken down in a week, and the base in another week.[1]

In disassembling the set, everything that was salvageable from the ark was donated to Habitat for Humanity. "Leave no trace" was the slogan used by the director as part of the DVD's bonus features, "The Almighty Green Set".

The Ark used for filming was located in Crozet, Virginia.

To create Evan's beard and long hair, three designers would take three hours each day adding individual hairs using prosthetic adhesive and making Carell wear custom wigs. The wigs consisted of both human and yak hair.[11] With his new look, Carell was sometimes nicknamed "Mountain Man", "Retrosexual", or "Unabomber."[11] For his costumes, designers spoke with textile experts, researched historical information on the clothing that was likely worn at the time of Noah, and used aged fibers for the clothing.[1]

Scenes for the film were filmed in various locations in Virginia, including areas in and around Crozet, Waynesboro, Richmond, Charlottesville, and Staunton, though some filming did take place at Universal Studios in Hollywood, California.[12]

For the CGI used throughout the film, companies Rhythm & Hues (R&H) and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) developed different parts of the film. R&H focused on the animation of the animals, while ILM completed the final scene of the ark rushing through Washington D.C.[13] Lindy De Quattro, the ILM associate visual effects supervisor, revealed that "This is the first time where we had to do a whole series of shots that were happening mid-day, where you were going to get a really long look at the water and what it was doing."[13] The company initially experienced problems creating the water effects and had to develop new tools which would choreograph the movements of the water. In addition, ILM used similar tools that were used on their prior film Poseidon.[13] Lighting was also an issue as the characters on the ark had been filmed on a greenscreen stage, and the visual effects company had to ensure that the lighting matched that of the characters and the outside setting. Details were added to the ark for long-distance shots to make the design of the ark more appealing and relate the ark's size to scale in comparison to the amount of water. To complete the scene, ILM used thirty to sixty crew members and produced 200 shots over a yearlong period between April 2006 and May 2007.[13]

Signage on a lamppost in downtown Waynesboro, Virginia for Evan Almighty filming.

Rhythm & Hues created 300 pairs of animals for use on the ark and fifteen pairs with higher detail for closeup shots.[1] R&H was also assisted by C.I.S. Hollywood, another visual effects company, who provided a large number of composites, involving hundreds of greenscreen animal elements.[1] In scenes where there are multiple species of animals, crew members would film the animals on the greenscreen and R&H and C.I.S would digitally add the animals one at a time, sometimes taking several weeks to a couple of months. Andy Arnett, the animation supervisor, declared that "The research was extensive. It took six or seven months to perfect the look and feel of the animals before we had the first shot out the door."[1]

For the scene in Congressman Long's office, CGI was used the entire time for the fish that follow Evan around from the fish tank. Cafe FX, the visual effects company hired for the scene, ordered ten different kinds of tropical fish from a local store and studied their movements to imitate them on screen using computer animation. Jeff Goldman, the visual effects supervisor, stated "Early in the sequence, we mimicked the actual behavior of the fish in our animation, but as the scene plays out, the fish are a counterpoint to Steve Carell's comedic timing."[14]

The premiere for the film was held on June 10, 2007 and guests included Adam Sandler, David Hasselhoff, Kate Flannery, Eddie Murphy, Kevin James, and Mindy Kaling, among others.[32]

The film was released on HD DVD and DVD on October 9, 2007[33] and was the fourth-most rented DVD of the week earning $6.4 million.[34] In the film's first six weeks of release it earned $27,676,676 in domestic DVD sales.[35] The HD-DVD and DVD's special features include deleted scenes, outtakes, cast interviews, and footage of the animals used in the film. The film was released on Blu-ray on August 7, 2012.

Malaysia's Muslim Consumers Association (PPIM) called for a ban on the film, claiming it is offensive to Islam. Secretary-General Maamor Osman claimed that the film was depicting the great flood as comedy and characterized God with the portrayal of a human, both of which are considered blasphemous in Islam. Similarly there was some public protest against Bruce Almighty being shown in theaters, but that movie was released on DVD and was also shown on television broadcasts. Evan Almighty was still released in Malaysia on August 23, 2007.[36]

Though Evan Almighty was well hyped, especially with churchgoers,[37] and had double the budget of Bruce Almighty, it performed under expectations. On its first weekend, it opened in 5,200 screens in 3,604 theaters and earned $31.1 million[38] (on its first two days the film earned $11.4 million followed by $8.3 million on Sunday).[37] The opening was less than half of the first film's $68 million weekend ($85 million counting Memorial Day).[8] Nikki Rocco, the president of distribution for Universal Pictures declared, "We never expected it to be much higher ... it is not unusual for family films to open at a level like this and build. This film will have legs."[8] The film managed to remain at the third spot at the box office in its second week, before dropping to fifth place in its third week.[39]

Internationally, the film also opened in first place in Russia and Ukraine, earning $1.5 million in Russia with 329 venues and $179,000 in Ukraine at 64 locations. The gross in the opening weekends for the two countries was 10% and 11%, respectively, bigger than the opening for Bruce Almighty.[37] Altogether, the film earned $173,418,781 worldwide with $100,462,298 in the U.S. and $72,956,483 in the international box office.[40]

According to figures from Box Office Mojo, the film is the second highest-grossing film about "Supernatural Comedies with Religious Elements", directly behind Bruce Almighty.[41]

Evan Almighty received generally negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 24%, based on 194 reviews, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Big on special effects but short on laughs, Evan Almighty underutilizes a star-studded cast that includes Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman."[42] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 37 out of 100, based on reviews from 33 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[43] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[44]

Critic Richard Roeper commended Jim Carrey for declining to reprise his role in "three of the worst sequels of all time", which included Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, Son of the Mask and Evan Almighty. He continued: "Evan Almighty is a paper-thin alleged comedy with a laugh drought of biblical proportions, and a condescendingly simplistic spiritual message."[45] Several reviewers credit Carell's performance to significantly improving the humor of the film.[46][47] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave it 1 out of 4, calling it "shamelessly juvenile, pseudo-religious, mock-sincere" and "not that funny". He praised Carell "who projects the movie’s only sense of mischief. But it’s too little and too late."[48] He later included it on his list of the Worst Movies of 2007.[49]

Before Evan Almighty was released, it was nominated for "Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet" at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards. Competing against seven other nominees, it lost to Transformers.[50] At the Golden Raspberry Awards Evan Almighty was nominated for the Worst Prequel or Sequel, but lost to Daddy Day Camp.[51]