A movie version of the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not franchise has been in the works for awhile now. Both Tim Burton and Chris Columbus have been attached at different points. Now it looks like Ripley’s will be written by Forrest Gump scribe Eric Roth and star Jim Carrey as globe-trotting newspaper columnist Robert Ripley. Personally, I would have cast Carrey as the guy who can stick a billiards ball, a tennis ball and a golf ball in his mouth and still whistle, but if they wanted my input, damn it, they should have asked me sooner.

Here’s a synopsis from Deadline:

The film is about Ripley’s search around the world for the most unusual people and places that he immortalized in his newspaper column. The locales were exotic and the sights were unbelievable, but the film is about Ripley’s journey to appreciate that the unusual people were more than just conquests to be cataloged.

So he learns that freaks aren’t just attractions who help sell tickets to museums. They’re also people. Real people. Real freaky people who will get tourists to buy tickets to a schlocky museum. That’s gonna be a very sweet ending, I can tell. (Deadline)