Paramount Pictures is showing renewed interest in a big screen "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" hiring Steve "Bruce Almighty" Oedekerk to write a fresh dramatic screenplay, based on a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.Actor Jim "The Mask" Carrey and director Tim "Batman" Burton are still attached to the project, with Paramount looking at a winter 2008 start in China followed by a 2009 release.
Oedekerk previously collaborated with Carrey on comedy TV series "In Living Color", wrote "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls", "Bruce Almighty" and recently scripted "Evan Almighty".
Travel was newspaper comic strip cartoonist Robert Ripley's lifelong obsession. During his career, he visited 198 countries, drawn to Asia in 1925, crossing through Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines. Feeling most at home in China, Ripley adopted local customs, often greeting guests in traditional Asian costume while presiding over elaborate feasts.
His houses were filled with 'odditorium' artifacts he brought back from his Marco Polo-like travels, including Chinese wallhangings, totem poles from Alaska and giant bronze guardian statues from the Orient.
A colleague once said "the most curious object in the collection is probably Mr. Ripley himself."
He became a millionaire who dressed in bright colors and patterns, wore bat-wing ties and two-toned spat shoes. He collected cars, but never learned to drive. Even though he often used complicated recording equipment for broadcasts, associates remarked he was afraid to use a telephone for fear of being electrocuted. A non-swimmer, Ripley owned boats including dug-out canoes and a Chinese sailing junk moored at B.I.O.N. Island, his estate in Mamaroneck, New York.
The 1930's and 40's were the Golden Age of Ripley, with "Believe It or Not!" becoming the catchphrase of the day and small towns across the US selling out halls and vaudeville theaters to hear his lectures and to see his films.
Self-educated, he received honorary titles and degrees, but died of a heart attack in 1949, at the age of 56, shortly after the thirteenth telecast of his TV series.
The 1930's and 40's were the Golden Age of Ripley, with "Believe It or Not!" becoming the catchphrase of the day and small towns across the US selling out halls and vaudeville theaters to hear his lectures and to see his films.
Self-educated, he received honorary titles and degrees, but died of a heart attack in 1949, at the age of 56, shortly after the thirteenth telecast of his TV series.
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