‘Evil Dead Burn’ Director Sébastien Vaniček Wants To Remake ‘The Mask’ As Comic-Accurate Violent & R-Rated Version

“The Mask” was one of the big hits for Canadian actor Jim Carrey during his legendary box office run in 1994, releasing a trio of massively successful comedy blockbuster smashes (alongside “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and “Dumb & Dumber“), thrusting the “In Living Color” cast member into superstardom. Well, there is now a filmmaker who wants to take a crack at a remake of that ’90s comic book movie with Sébastien Vaniček, the director of “Evil Dead Burn,” setting his sights on a very different version of what you might be expecting.

The director was answering fan questions during a recent Reddit AMA session and revealed his openness to tackling a new version of “The Mask.”

“I think I would dig into The Mask, but make it closer to the comic books,” Vaniček said when asked about what other studio IP he’d like to work on in the future. “The comic books are actually very, very violent and dark.”

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In the 1994 version from New Line Cinema helmed by Chuck Russell (“The Blob,” “A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”), Carrey plays a schlub good-guy bank teller who discovers a mask (endowed with the powers of Loki, the Norse god of mischief) and transforms him into a green-faced public menace oozing with inflated confidence and comedic timing, along with tangling with a criminal syndicate. It not only incorporated some fantastic set pieces and practical-effects gags, but also some impressive early CGI. Fans of the original comic book were likely more than a little shocked that the feature film adaptation skewed more in the family-friendly comedy realm, as the source material was not only mature but BRUTALLY violent (something that sort of mirrored the violent “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” comic book that was adapted for the Saturday morning cartoon and New Line Cinema movie).

Funny enough, back in 2024, Carrey talked to ComicBook about his potential return to “The Mask,” mentioning that it would be more about the idea rather than the money being offered to coax him to reprise the part. It would be kind of awesome if Carrey ended up coming back to the role only to do this hyper-violent iteration that Vaniček is musing about (he’s already coming back to “The Grinch” for Ron Howard and Universal Pictures, mind you).

“Oh gosh, you know, it has to be the right idea. If somebody had the right idea, I guess…It’s not really about the money. I joke about the money…But I never know. You can’t be definite about these things. 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.”

Vaniček’s “Evil Dead Burn” (the third installment taking up the Deadite franchise after Sam Raimi rounded out his trilogy with “Army of Darkness“) actually did some decent business over the weekend, earning $40.7 million globally at the box office, on a reportedly modest production budget of $20 million (a collaboration between New Line Cinema and Screen Gems), there is a good shot the movie is going to turn a decent profit if it manages to stay in theaters for the next couple of weeks when bigger films like “The Oydssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” gobble-up screen counts.

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It’s sort of odd that Vaniček happened to zero in on a property that could reunite him with New Line Cinema, after working with them on “Evil Dead Burn.” We’ll see if this is just a pipedream or something that may morph into a real-deal remake/soft-reboot of “The Mask.”