Many years ago, when I was but a young lass, I remember reading about a movie based on Robert Ripley. It was supposed to star Jim Carrey. Being a nerd for the oddball things the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not show used to dig up, I was excited to see just who this crazy bastard was. Then, it never happened; despite being mere weeks away from shooting (with Tim Burton directing) in 2007, Carrey decided to come up with a whole bunch of ideas resulting in a script rewrite and the departure of both Burton and its green-lit $175 million budget.[Deadline, The Playlist]
Now it looks like Paramount is willing to give it another go, bringing on Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich, Benjamin Button) to do a complete overhaul of the script. And though it’s very likely that Burton is going to stay gone (and hopefully that means Chris Columbus, who was in talks for the project after Burton left, will also stay away), Carrey is still on board to play Robert Ripley. This could be another step in the right direction for the once-fading movie star. His head-turning performance in I Love You Philip Morris remembers the man with talent worthy of Oscar, both then and now still.
Outside of the new script and Carrey’s involvement, there’s not much else going for it, be it a director or a release date or any projections of the sort. But you best believe The Film Stage will be on it like white on rice when any more news does break. Or, you know, not.
Do you think Ripley’s will actually get made this time, or is this project just cursed?