Chris Columbus takes over Ripley's Believe It or Not

Film's always had its great directors, from Alfred Hitchcock to Quentin Tarantino, and its embarrassments, from Ed Wood to Uwe Boll. But rarely are the truly mediocre talents, the ones who fill out the rest of a studio's yearly output, celebrated for what they add to the field. For our day and age, there is perhaps no greater creator for mediocrity than Chris Columbus. The director of Home Alone 2 and Rent, Columbus has now announced the next project he plans on tapping with his magical wand of passable entertainment: Ripley's Believe It or Not.

Previously Ripley's was planned as wildly creative project from Tim Burton, pitched as a form of anarchistic biopic of Rip Ripley and his search to make the impossible possible. The project was rumored before then to be in talks with Michel Gondry, which makes sense given his penchant for this sort of thing and because the film is set to star Jim Carrey. But after Burton left a few months from shooting, the film was indefinitely delayed. IMDB listed Spike Jonze on the feature for half a year, a claim which seems relatively substantiated, but obviously the director has been too busy with Where the Wild Things Are to move onto anything new.

Now, Variety reports that Columbus is negotiating to direct a completely different version of the film. Gone is the previous script by Ed Wood and Man on the Moon's Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, in favor of spec work by someone Paramount hired. Long story short, what was almost one of the most idiosyncratic studio films in years will instead be taken over by the director of the first two Harry Potter movies. Paramount is planning to release Ripley's in 2011 and hopes it will spawn a franchise. Expect it to be very, very average.

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