Christmas could be coming early for Grinch fans, with Jim Carrey in talks to return to his role as everyone’s favourite green and furry misanthrope.
A sequel to the 2000 festive film How the Grinch Stole Christmas is currently in development at Universal and Imagine Entertainment, as reported earlier this week by The Hollywood Reporter.
Fans will be delighted to know that Carrey, who earned a Golden Globe nomination for his anarchic rubber-faced performance in the Dr Seuss adaptation, is expected to reprise his role, with Rob Howard reportedly returning as director.
While Carrey was one of the biggest starts of the 1990s and early aughts – starring in films such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), The Mask (1994), and Bruce Almighty (2003) – the actor has been less active in recent years.
In the last six years, Carrey has starred in only two films: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024). He is currently set to return to the franchise as Dr Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, which is set for release in 2027.
The actor has previously hinted that he would be open to reprising the role of the Grinch, explaining that today’s motion capture technology would mean he could bypass the intensive makeup process he underwent the first time around.
“Oh, gosh, you know, if we could figure out the Grinch,” Carrey told ComicBook.com in 2024. “The thing about it is, on the day, I do that with a ton of makeup and can hardly breathe. It was an extremely excruciating process.
“The children were in my mind all the time: ‘It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids. It’s for the kids.’ And now, with motion capture and things like that, I could be free to do other things. Anything is possible in this world.”
The makeup process was so bad that Carrey told Vulture that he wanted to quit on day one of production and return his $20m fee, only getting through the shoot thanks to help from a man who trained CIA agents to withstand torture.
News that Carrey is in talks to return comes two years after the actor said that he agreed to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 because he “needed the money”.
Speaking at the film’s London premiere in 2024, Carrey responded to a journalist who asked why he had returned to the franchise after seeming to retire two years earlier: “I came back to this universe because, first of all, I get to play a genius, which is a bit of a stretch. And, you know, it’s just … I bought a lot of stuff and I need the money, frankly.”
In 2022, Carrey had said he had “done enough” acting and was “fairly serious” about retiring, noting that “I really like my quiet life and I really like putting paint on canvas and I really love my spiritual life and I feel like… I have enough.”
A passionate painter, Carrey participated in the 2017 documentary I Needed Color.
The forthcoming Grinch sequel also comes after the 2018 animated adaptation, in which Benedict Cumberbatch voiced the titular role. The film, also made by Imagine and Universal, was a massive success, earning $552.9m worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Christmas-themed movie of all time.
A release date for the forthcoming sequel is yet to be announced.
