Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: After getting to within weeks of a production start in China on Ripley's Believe It Or Not before pulling the plug in 2007, Paramount Pictures is taking another shot at turning newspaper columnist Robert Ripley's life into an epic film. Oscar-winning scribe Eric Roth has come aboard to do a complete rewrite overhaul. Tim Burton, who had been set to direct that earlier incarnation, is gone. But Jim Carrey is still attached to star as Ripley.

The addition of Roth to the mix gives reason to be optimistic once again about the project. Roth, who won his Oscar for Forrest Gump, has most recently adapted the Jonathan Safran Foer novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which Warner Bros and producer Scott Rudin are about to put into production with Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks starring. Roth also scripted The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Munich and The Good Shepherd.

Carrey turned in an acclaimed performance as conman Steven Russell in I Love You Philip Morris and just wrapped Mr. Popper's Penguins. Carrey hosted Saturday Night Live last weekend.