Audrey Geisel

He didn't want to do anything like that with his story.

And after his death, his widow, Audrey Geisel, became the guardian of the work.

And she started inviting pitches for a live action Grinch all the way back in 1998.

And she had a very, very strict rule for any filmmaker who was going to do this, any producer studio, which I think you'll find funny.

and he famously played Andy Kaufman fully method.

There's a whole documentary about it that was on Netflix.

So when Audrey Geisel met Jim Carrey, he was making Man on the Moon, but he was fully in character method as Andy Kaufman.

So when he auditioned for Audrey Geisel, he was Jim Carrey playing Andy Kaufman auditioning as the Grinch and that's what Audrey Geisel saw which is ridiculous I know and so she thought like well he's crazy enough to make this work and that's kind of basically how we got the part so The screenplay was by Jeffrey Price and Peter S.

Right.

It took nearly a decade of negotiations, but eventually, his widow, Audrey Geisel, decided to open the vault.

She wanted to see if modern filmmaking technology had finally caught up to her husband's imagination.

And that decision paved the way for the first big attempt.

Flop.

But the real casualty was the brand equity.

Audrey Geisel was reportedly horrified by the final product.

She had seen her husband's gentle, rhythmic educational book mutated into a loud, crass, adult-leaning comedy.