‘Waterfall of Interest’ in Jim Carrey After He Cancels ‘Retirement’: ‘You Have to Pay Him a Fortune’

Jim Carrey is openly back in the Hollywood game and has tons of offers flooding to him, but a source exclusively tells Closer the iconic comedian is being wisely picky and making prospective employers jump through hoops before he even considers them.

“You got to hand it to Jim, when he started talking openly about retirement in 2022, people around town finally woke up to the fact that there’s only going to be one Jim Carrey – they’re not making any more of him,” the insider says. “Jim threatening to retire led pretty quickly to a very high-paid deal to return to Sonic the Hedgehog for the third film that’s just coming out now.

The Ace Ventura star, 62, walked back his comments about calling it quits in an interview with Comicbook.com published from a Sonic press tour event on December 11. “You can’t be definite about these things,” he said. “I said I’d like to retire, but I think I was talking more about ‘power-resting.’ Because as soon as a good idea comes your way, or a group of people that you really enjoyed working with and stuff, it just — things tend to change.”

When about the reason he decided to come back to the Sonic universe and reprise his role in an interview with the Associated Press at the same junket, a deadpan Jim joked, “I bought a lot of stuff, and frankly, I need the money.”

“It’s not really about the money. I joke about the money,” the Mask star added before quipping, “but I never know.”

While on the promo tour, the insider says the actor “has been a very happy guy promoting this movie, because he had so much influence over the finished product.” Jim’s had so much input in the movie he was even credited as an “artistic consultant” in addition to actor on the film. “Interestingly, Jim had more creative power than ever on this movie, rewriting his lines and improvising at will in his crazy dual role as Sonic villains Dr. Robotnik and Robotnik’s absurdly abusive grandfather.” 

“The side effect of all this is the waterfall of interest he’s been getting,” the insider adds. As sequels and reboots continue their domination of the industry, Jim’s has big money lining up to get him “to come back to his signature characters like The Grinch, The Mask and Ace Ventura.” 

“But Jim really holds all the cards when it comes to these franchises. It’s been proven time and time again that you can’t make a sequel to a Jim Carrey classic successful unless you have Jim himself in it.”

“Even though Jim is the king of improv, he’s incredibly picky about scripts and generally speaking, he’s been right more than he’s been wrong about what stories to tell. The net effect of all this is something the Sonic filmmaking team has known for five years: if you want Jim in your movie and doing his best work, you have to do things Jim’s way, and you have to pay him a fortune for that right!”