Give Jeff Bridges credit, "The Dude" certainly doesn't restrict himself to any single genre. The Oscar-winning acting legend is circling a new comic book adaptation that's a far cry from his previous venture in that territory with Iron Man; the new project in question is R.I.P.D., a supernatural crime thriller that Ryan Reynolds remains attached to headline.

Bridges looks to serve in R.I.P.D. as the replacement for Hangover star Zach Galifianakis, who reportedly left the project due to concerns that Reynolds won't be able to star because of his commitment to Green Lantern 2. For the time being, that appears to still be a potential issue.

Here is an official lowdown on Peter M. Lenkov's original R.I.P.D. graphic novel:

Welcome to the Rest In Peace Department — the devoted, yet dead, officers of divine law enforcement “patrolling the deadbeat…reporting to one boss.” Yep — THAT boss. Nick Cruz (Reynolds) was murdered by an unknown assailant, at the height of his personal and professional life. Now he’s traded a hundred years of service to the R.I.P.D. in exchange for a shot at finding who killed him. Unfortunately his search will take him to Hell and back — literally!

Deadline says Bridges is currently negotiating with Universal Pictures to join the cast of R.I.P.D. The pic would be yet another (put simply) interesting change of pace for Bridges after his appearance in two of last winter's big titles: TRON: Legacy and True Grit. He also has a fantasy literature adaptation - The Seventh Son - to tackle this fall as well.

True Grit Jeff Bridges new clip
Bridges in 'True Grit'.

Bridges and Reynolds could make for an amusing mismatched pair of undead police officers - assuming that's who they play - in R.I.P.D.; it'll definitely be different than the one Galifianakis and Reynolds would have made. I envision Bridges as playing the curmudgeonly veteran to Reynold's newly-minted... er, dead detective, which could result in a pretty entertaining (if traditional) buddy cop duo.

In terms of who's working behind the scenes on R.I.P.D., the project seems like kind of a mixed bag. On the plus side you have director Robert Schwentke (RED) calling the shots; on the less-encouraging side, you have screenwriting duo Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (Æon Flux, Clash of the Titans) handling the script. Take that as you will.

R.I.P.D. basically sounds like your standard police action-comedy with a supernatural twist. Moviegoers will get a taste of that with today's release of another supernatural comic book detective tale - Dylan Dog: Dead of Night - but the former sounds different and creative enough to keep me interested for now.

R.I.P.D. is tentatively scheduled to hit theaters in 2012.

Source: Deadline