Robert Knepper, best known for his brilliant performance as Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell throughout TV’s Prison Break, has signed on to star in the film adaptation of the Dark Horse comic, R.I.P.D., Heat Vision report.
He joins what is already a fantastic cast, led by Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges, and also starring Mary Louise Parker, Kevin Bacon, James Hong, and Marisa Miller. Frequent collaborators Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay (Æon Flux, Clash of the Titans) have adapted Peter M. Lenkov’s original comic book, and production has already begun.
“The story centers on a murdered cop (Reynolds) who is recruited to work in the Rest in Peace Department, a police force comprised of ghosts who battle spirits unready to depart this world.
Knepper will play one of the spirits, known as a “deado” in the movie’s lingo.”
R.I.P.D. sees director Robert Schwentke following up from the terrific success of last year’s comic book adaptation, RED. Even though Reynolds’ last two films – Green Lantern and The Change-Up – haven’t performed tremendously well at the box office (the latter has only just come out here, but came out a month ago in the States), I still think that he’s a brilliant actor, and I thought he was the best thing Green Lantern had going for it. In my opinion, he did really well from a script that could have been much better. As such, I’m really looking forward to seeing him take on this role, which sounds like it has the potential to be a fantastic protagonist in a terrific film.
Knepper was one of my favourite characters, and undoubtedly many other people’s too, in Prison Break throughout its four seasons, managing to bring T-Bag to life in a way I can’t see anyone else doing nearly as well. He also had a great turn in the last season of Heroes, and has starred in several high-grossing feature films, including George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and the Hitman film. He’s been such a good actor in everything I’ve seen him in to date, so there’s every reason to expect we’ll get another terrific performance from him in R.I.P.D.
The film has a scheduled release date of 28th June, 2013 in the US, and hopefully we’ll be getting it then too. Whilst that does like quite a while away, with production having already started, it sounds like it should be well worth the wait.
