Ryan Reynolds to Star in R.I.P.D., Fourth Comic Book Movie
Posted 04.03.10 by BrentJS
Actor Ryan Reynolds is already attached to three comic book–based movie properties, having appeared as Hannibal King in Blade Trinity, Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and currently filming scenes as the title hero in DC Entertainment's Green Lantern, but it appears he is going to add a fourth to his resume. In a recent interview with Collider, producer Neal Moritz (Fast and Furious) revealed that
Reynolds will be starring in the big screen-adaptation of R.I.P.D., a graphic novel from independent publisher Dark Horse Comics.
We're going to do two movies with [Reynolds]. We're doing The Change-Up with him and we're doing R.I.P.D. with him.
It's terrific. Based on the graphic novel. It's about two cops, one recently dead and a gunslinger who's been dead for hundreds of years who work [in] the Rest in Peace Department - which is the police department of the dead. And they basically … it takes place on a normal day and it's about trying to keep the dead quiet.
Though he has no comic book-related movies under his belt as of yet, in addition to R.I.P.D., Moritz is guiding the development of an adaptation of Dynamite Entertainment's The Boys for Columbia Pictures, and is also producing a revival of the pulp hero Doc Savage through his Original Film production company for Columbia. The script for R.I.P.D. is by Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay, the writing team behind director Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans remake. Moritz said Manfredi and Hay's script is "terrific" and that, despite the supernatural overtones, the movie will be a "buddy action/comedy" aimed at a PG-13 audience.
[Reynolds will] be teamed with somebody, but it's a fantastic relationship between a cop who's recently died who would do anything to get back to his wife and a gunslinger who died hundreds of years ago who has seen it all and is jaded by it all. And it's the two of these guys together and it's the relationship between these two guys that is absolutely fantastic.
Moritz said that R.I.P.D. is Reynolds' "favorite project" and that he expects to go into production in January 2011.