Do you have a life story that would be best told on a grand scale across time and space? Then Eric Roth is your man. From Forrest Gump to Ali to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, this guy does not write about insignificant people.
A biopic on the journalist Robert Ripley has been in the works for a long time, but now Roth has been hired to rewrite the script. Tim Burton almost got the film made in 2007 with Jim Carrey set to star, but the laugh legend came back with a few radical ideas that would have shifted the entire movie (they were just weeks from production beginning). So that was scrapped. Then Chris Columbus came along and tried, but that ultimately failed (woo!). Now it’s up to Roth to deliver a script worthy of the project’s hefty budget (the source claims that Burton’s version of the movie would’ve cost nearly $175 million!). Luckily, Jim Carrey is still attached to star.
Roth is a great writer if he sticks to the right subject. The sweeping life that Ripley led (in a constant search for the wild and weird) is perfect material for the Oscar-winning scribe. It could be a cinematic triumph that captures the human spirit and its continuous quest for discovery and excitement. Or it could be another Benjamin Button.
I just hope Dean Cain will be offered a part.
Source: Deadline
