Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

R.I.P.D.

4/2/10 - Ryan Reynolds will soon star as an undead cop in the feature-film adaptation of the R.I.P.D. comic series.  Producer Neal Moritz spilled the beans to Collider.com.  R.I.P.D. Rest in peace department. A terrific script by Manfredi & Hay at Universal that we hopefully going to make at the beginning of next year.  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 on the Rest in Peace department—which is the police department of the dead. It takes place on a normal day and it's about trying to keep the dead quiet.  R.I.P.D. is a 2003 Dark Horse graphic novel by Peter Lenkov.

2/23/10 – SCI FI Wire reported that screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi are adapting a new comic property, Peter Lenkov's R.I.P.D.  "R.I.P.D. was brought to us by David Dobkin and Neal Moritz, director and producer, respectively," Phil Hay said. "The graphic novel by Peter Lenkov was something we hadn't seen before."  R.I.P.D., which stands for "Rest in Peace Department," is a 2003 Dark Horse graphic novel about two deceased cops who get a chance to return from the dead and hunt down their assailants in exchange for 100 years of service to the R.I.P.D. "We genuinely loved it and kind of set about this journey of trying to turn it into a movie," says Hay. "In its nature, it's basically a buddy-cop comedy in a very spectacular Ghostbusters-like world. It's been really fun."  Hay and Manfredi have already turned in their draft and now await the decision of the powers that be. "The script has all along gotten really good reactions," says Hay. "It's just about the complex machinery that it takes to get one of these studio movies going. We would always make ourselves available to work on that movie, because it really is close to our hearts."

11/12/08 – SCI Fi Wire reported that Mike Richardson, the founder of Dark Horse Entertainment, struck a partnership with Universal Pictures to develop a slate of movies based on the company's many comics and graphic novels, including R.I.P.D.   "Actually, we're quite busy right now," Richardson said Nov. 11 in Hollywood on the red carpet of a party to celebrate the Blu-ray release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. "The most immediate is R.I.P.D. ... David Dobkin [Wedding Crashers] is directing. We're doing it over at Universal Studios. We have a great script by [Matt] Manfredi and [Phil] Hay. R.I.P.D. stands for Rest in Peace Department. It's based on a graphic novel by Peter Lenkov. It's about dead cops that died in the line of duty that are sent back basically to get people who don't want to come peacefully, people who stayed behind. It's a lot of fun. ... It has a few of the elements of something like a Men in Black, except this one has real scares in it. It's not sort of a cartoon scares. A lot of humor, but real scary stuff going on."

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