As you might imagine, after writing a high concept film that not only sells, but becomes green-lit as one of the year’s major spectacles, you’re gonna field some subsequent offers. No different for Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, the scribes behind next month’s epic actioner CLASH OF THE TITANS. Now that they’ve carved a name for each other, an opportunity to bring the beloved Dark Horse comic R.I.P.D to the silver screen has arisen. Seriously though!
According to a recent sit-down with the cats at over at FearNet, Hay and Manfredi discussed the project at good length, noting tonal comparisons to the holy grail of all horror comedies, GHOSTBUSTERS.
For those in the know not, R.I.P.D. is about a recently murdered cop who joins the undead police officers of the Rest in Peace Department, and tries to find the guy who killed him.
Sounds legit, right? Well now that we’ve (re)acquainted you with the storyline of the 1999 comic, let’s delve headlong into what the two writers had to say about the project:
“It’s based on a Dark Horse graphic novel by Peter Lenkov. It’s a buddy comedy at heart, in a kind of Ghostbusters/Men in Black fantasy world. It’s been really fun to work on because you’re kind of doing a buddy cop movie with an entire overlay of this kind of mythology of fantastical beings and creatures, etc…I’d say it’s more like GHOSTBUSTERS in tone. It’s more like a PG-13 film.”
When asked how far along the project is at this point, Manfredi responded:
“Basically, they’re trying to put the movie together. At this point we just kind of wait and see what happens. It’s been close a few times, and it hasn’t happened yet. But I think that there’s kind of a push on. So basically we just have to have our fingers crossed and hope that they are able to get it together. Because I think it could be a really fun movie. It’s one that we really love and have been working on for a long time. So it would be great to see it come to fruition.”
Indeed. Indeed it would.
If you care to read a bit more about the project, including inspiration drawn from John Landis flicks, BEVERLY HILLS COP, and GHOSTBUSTERS itself…find your way over HERE.
Hay & Manfredi wrote AEON FLUX, starring my girl Charlize!
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