Jim Carrey Could Have Starred In One Of Mel Gibson's Biggest Flops

Jim Carrey's career has taken some interesting turns over the years. After becoming a box-office juggernaut in the mid-1990s with the blazing blockbuster streak of "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," "The Mask," "Dumb and Dumber," "Batman Forever," and "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls," he found the ditch with the commercial and critical wipeout of Ben Stiller's darkly comedic curveball "The Cable Guy." The thoughtful actor reestablished his commercial connection with mainstream moviegoers the following year with "Liar Liar," then took another risk with Peter Weir's "The Truman Show." The result was one of the best films of 1998, one that received a curious smattering of Oscar nominations for Weir (Director), Supporting Actor (Ed Harris), and Original Screenplay (Andrew Niccol). That a film as acclaimed and successful as "The Truman Show" could be denied Best Picture and Best Actor nods in a weak year felt like a rebuke of its star. Many Academy members simply couldn't get past the fact that, just four years earlier, this man had literally been talking out of his butt on the big screen.

Oscar voters sent a clear message that year: Carrey had to earn his nomination, which, given that they denied him in 1999 for his eerily perfect portrayal of Andy Kaufman in "Man on the Moon," meant some vague semblance of distance and seriousness was required. This was dumb, and I wonder if it eventually wore Carrey out. After the prestige non-starter that was Frank Darabont's "The Majestic" in 2001, he rebounded with the performance of his career to date in Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." More mixed signals: the acclaimed/successful masterpiece snagged a paltry pair of nominations for Actress (Kate Winslet) and Screenplay (for Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, and Pierre Bismuth, which they won), while Carrey got nothing (he was also denied by the Screen Actors Guild).

Carrey responded with a pair of quality commercial flicks in "Fun with Dick and Jane" and "Yes Man," and the lousy thriller "The Number 23." Now that the sight of his chatty ass was over a decade in the rearview, the time felt right for another serious movie. This is when a scorchingly hot original screenplay hit Hollywood. It needed an actor with a manic edge. Carrey felt like a perfect fit. The role eventually went to Mel Gibson, and the film flopped. How did such a promising project go so wrong?

Kyle Killen's "The Beaver" was the hottest screenplay on the 2008 The Black List, an annual collection of the film industry's best scripts as voted upon by Hollywood development execs. It's the bizarrely cathartic tale of a toy company CEO who has a nervous breakdown and begins communicating with his estranged family via a beaver hand puppet. In 2009, "The Beaver" appeared to be a go-picture with Jodie Foster directing Jim Carrey in the lead role. It wound up going before cameras with Mel Gibson as the star.

"The Beaver" was a crossroads for both actors. By the time the film was released, Gibson was mired in scandals related to domestic violence charges from girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, as well as bigoted comments dating back to 1991. The problem with Gibson to this day is that he's an enormously talented actor and director with a penchant for making and starring in hit movies. Foster, who'd co-starred with Gibson in Richard Donner's "Maverick," rolled the dice on Gibson in a comeback project, and, shockingly, no one wanted to see the action star in a quirky dramedy. The film made $7.3 million on a $21 million budget.

Would "The Beaver" have worked with Carrey? Yes. I hate to say it, but it worked with Gibson. Jettison the awful baggage Gibson brought to the role and plug an incandescent talent like Carrey into that part, and this could've been an Oscar contender. It's an off-kilter movie, but it's also achingly sincere and so well-directed by Foster. A decade after not making "The Beaver," Carrey appears fiercely dedicated to "Sonic the Hedgehog" movies and nothing else. Way to beat a genius down, Hollywood.