Steve Carell, director Tom Shadyac, and Morgan Freeman on the set of Evan Almighty. Click here to see more movie stills. Photo by Ralph Nelson © 2007 Universal Studios

How do you make God laugh? Make a plan.

Everything seemed to be going according to plan, but then rumors began swirling that this simple comedy was slowly becoming a budget juggernaut that was burning through more money than the original took in during its entire theatrical run. People were comparing it to another big boat movie with a troubled production — you know, the one that netted James Cameron all those shiny gold statuettes — but Shadyac not only slams this kind of talk; he actually suggests the production had a Divine executive producer.

"We felt this movie wanted to be made," he says. "When I sat down to write it in Santa Monica, it started raining, and it didn't let up for a month. I thought, 'This is interesting.' Then we went to Charlottesville and everybody was concerned about the weather, saying we should shoot in California. The weather was not only stunning in Virginia, but in California it was raining cats and dogs. It would have destroyed our production schedule. The day we left Charlottesville, it rained and flooded in the very valley where we built the ark. So, yeah, we feel we were blessed."

He even laughs off the $200 million budget rumors ("The hair dressing alone was $98 million"), but does point out that pulling together a computer-generated flood with composite shots of exotic animals isn't exactly cheap, either. "The good news is," he laughs, "ticket prices aren't going up because of this movie. People will get more for their money."

Budget gossip was soon followed by tales of Shadyac having screaming arguments with Universal suits over what he saw as a lack of advertising support for the film, something that doesn't even come up as he stands before a room of journalists on a Universal soundstage decorated with cardboard animal cut-outs and environmentalist literature.