on october 4th 2004 plans were announced to make a film that would chronicle the
life of Leroy Robert Ripley
known to the world as the founder of 'Believe It Or Not' a
wildly popular newspaper cartoon presenting bizarre
facts and oddities reader response to this format was
overwhelmingly positive and believe it or not
began appearing in a weekly and then a daily format
Ripley's first book length collection of his sketches believe it or not in 1929
was followed in the 1930s by several others
he also made a series of believe it or not film shorts as well as several
series of radio programs and he sponsored exhibits called
auditoriums where curiosities were displayed in a carnival-like atmosphere
his original cartoon was continued by others after his death in 1949
the movie of Ripley's life would be produced by James Jacks and Paramount
Pictures in 2005 once Burton had completed all
promotional work on The Corpse Bride he signed on to direct Jim Carrey was
signed up to star in the title role and the screenplay was to be written by
Ed Wood writers Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander who had also previously
scripted Carrey's Andy Kaufman biopic 'Man On The Moon'
the film would open on a Ripley who had already achieved fame through his quest
to retrieve and showcase the world's most bizarre
and curious pieces of information along the way
he would learn to appreciate his human discoveries as more than mere conquests
to be catalogued Burton and Carrey would meet up on a
regular basis to generate ideas and feed them back to the writers
producer Jacks explained it's about the exploits of Robert Ripley
one of the most popular newspaper cartoonists in the 30s and 40s who was
well known for going around the world and looking for oddities and getting
into adventures while doing so we want to make a series of movies that
if not quite the truth or the adventures that should have
happened we want to turn it into an 'Indiana Jones', a goofy version
on November 29th 2005 it was announced that Tim Burton would direct the film
with Jim Carrey starring as Robert Ripley. Filming was to begin in October
2006
for a 2007 release Paramount hinted that the film if successful
could be the start of a Ripley's film series
on June 12th 2006 Paramount delayed the start of production on the film for at
least a year because its projected budget went over
the allotted budget of 150 million dollars.
Carrey had waived his entire upfront salary to help keep costs low
but the project remained over budget Burton
and Carrey also wanted changes made to the film's script so that it would focus
more on Ripley's believe it or not column Carrey was adamant on avoiding
what happened with his previous project 'Fun With Dick And Jane' which required
reshoots and additional editing as a result of beginning production
without a script filming on 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not' had been scheduled to
begin in china in november 2006 but it was now rescheduled in winter
2008 for a 2009 release eventually
Paramount would make the decision to stop the production in its tracks
and the budget would be reallocated elsewhere Burton told the LA times that
he was pretty devastated
when Paramount finally