1/13/2011

Double Dose of Jim Carrey: Mr. Popper's Penguins and Ripley's Believe it Or Not

A couple of quick stories regarding Jim Carrey, and no neither of them has anything to do with The Three Stooges. It'd be cool if they did, but unfortunately I think that ship has sailed for good.  USA Today has the first images of Mr. Popper's Penguins, the adaptation of Richard and Florence Atwater's 1938 children's book.  Carrey stars as a "businessman whose professional side starts to unravel after he inherits six penguins, and as he transforms his apartment into a winter wonderland.” A bit different from the source, which had the main character as a none too successful house painter who inherits 12 penguins.  Carla Gugino, Angela Lansbury, and Clark Gregg co-star in the film, due out in theaters on August 12th. You can check out a couple of those shots below, and then hit up their site for the rest...




Doesn't look like the type of flick that will hook me, and I'll never understand the penguin fascination people have, but maybe Carrey can bring something unexpected to it.  I'm actually quite a fan of director Mark Waters(Freaky Friday, Mean Girls) for shepherding Lindsay Lohan's early career before she snorted it up her nose.

And then there's Ripley's Believe it Or Not, which had Tim Burton attached to direct the adventures of the globe trotting entrepeneur Robert Ripley. That film fell through, and the script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski just sat there for awhile, but the project never went away. Now it's looking like the film is getting back on track, with a whole new script being drafted by Eric Roth. Roth is a powerhouse writer, who gave us two other major films of with central figures living weird lives, Forrest Gump and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Sounds like a perfect fit. Jim Carrey's been attached to the film since the very beginning, and it appears that he is still very much on board.

No director has been announced just yet, but expect that news to come down soon enough. The original plan was to have the film ready for some time in 2012.