New trailer for Ace Ventura director Tom Shadyac’s documentary I Am is probably not what you’re expecting

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

If you know who Tom Shadyac is, then you probably know him best as the director of comedies like ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, LIAR LIAR, BRUCE ALMIGHTY, and EVAN ALMIGHTY. In fact, EVAN ALMIGHTY would mark the last time Shadyac would direct a major Hollywood tentpole movie. Why? Basically, the filmmaker bumped his head in a cycling accident, decided to leave Hollywood with newfound purpose in life, and now lives in a trailer park.

Though that may ironically sound like the plot to a Jim Carrey comedy, it’s actually the real life prologue of Shadyac’s new approach to living. His accident spurred him to reevaluate his life and how exactly he could better use that life (instead of making shitty comedies). The documentary I AM is the fruit of that learning and discovery.

I AM opens in select theaters sometime in February of next year.

Synopsis: I AM, a prismatic and probing exploration of our world, what’s wrong with it, and what we can do to make it better, represents Tom Shadyac’s first foray into non-fiction following a career as one of Hollywood’s leading comedy practitioners, with such successful titles as “Ace Ventura,” “Liar Liar,” and “Bruce Almighty” to his credit. I AM recounts what happened to the filmmaker after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. Though he ultimately recovered, he emerged a changed man. Disillusioned with life on the A-list, he sold his house, moved to a mobile home community, and decided to start life anew.

Armed with nothing but his innate curiosity and a camera crew, Shadyac embarks upon a journey to discover how he as an individual, and we as a race, can improve the way we live. Appearing on-screen as character, commentator, guide, and even, at times, guinea pig, Shadyac meets with a variety of thinkers and doers–remarkable men and women from the worlds of science, philosophy, and faith–including such luminaries as David Suzuki, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Lynne McTaggart, Ray Anderson, John Francis, Coleman Barks, and Marc Ian Barasch. An irrepressible Everyman who asks many questions but offers no easy answers, he takes the audience to places it has never been before, and presents even familiar phenomena in completely new and different ways.