Sonic 3’s writers reveal they wrote the script around Jim Carrey

Sonic 3 blew up the box office, with Jim Carrey making waves as a pair of mustachioed villains, but it turns out that enticing the comedy legend had a major role in the sequel’s development.

Sonic 3 was a charming threequel, with our spiky blue protagonist faced with both a dangerous new hedgehog and a pair of humanoid villains, Ivo and Gerald Robotnik (both Carrey). The dual role allowed Carrey to once again excel at the kinds of physical performances that make him a comedy legend.

In an interview with Screen Rant, writers Josh Miller and Pat Casey noted that enticing Jim Carrey to return was a major consideration as they scripted Sonic 3.

Paramount mad Sonic 3’s script with Jim Carrey in mind

Josh Miller made it clear that Carrey’s involvement was planned from moment one. He said “it was presented to us early on that they felt confident they could woo Jim back.” Co-writer Pat Casey set the stakes, saying that making the film “attractive” for Carrey was a huge goal for the team.

Paramount Pictures

As a consequence, the writers went about finding a story that Carrey would get excited about. “We wanted to come up with something really good that’s not a repeat, because Jim doesn’t want to repeat himself,” Casey explained.

“We had to give him something fresh to play, and giving him two characters, and also really sending Ivo on this emotional journey with a little bit of a redemption arc, teaming Ivo up with Sonic. We wanted to make it so attractive to Jim that when he saw it, there was no way he could say no.”

It provided a tough challenge, but Carrey’s desire to always grow and do fresh projects was exactly what sets him apart as a legend according to Josh Miller.

“The coolest thing about Jim is that I feel like, if you look at other franchises, it usually seems like the star gets kind of lazier.

“You get to the point where, like, ‘Technically, I’m only in 10 minutes of this movie, but you can string it around so it still feels like I’m an important character.’ I feel like Jim just keeps wanting to get challenged,” Miller explained. “He had to do so much more than he did in the first two films.”

It’s exactly this work ethic and these comedy instincts that make Jim Carrey a bona fide comedy legend. Sonic 3 is full of Easter Eggs for eagle-eyed fans, with Carrey making a huge splash.