When I log onto the internet every day, I expect to see many things. I expect to see people, some of them friends, screaming at one another on social media. I expect to see major corporate brands embarrassing themselves. And above all else, I expect to see the unexpected. But even with that attitude firmly in place, I did not expect to see the announcement of a forthcoming follow-up to one of 2013’s more notorious box office bombs, R.I.P.D.
The news comes to us from the good folks over at SyFy, who – in addition to revealing the very existence of this project, which stars Burn Notice‘s Jeffrey Donovan – also have a short trailer to share.
Let’s take a look:
OK, real talk? If you’d told me to imagine the trailer for a straight-to-Netflix R.I.P.D. sequel (er, it’s actually a prequel, but more on that in a moment), the film I would’ve imagined would not have looked this competently-made. The VFX look good! What’s here looks kinda fun, tonally speaking! God help me, this trailer makes me curious about the film being advertised in a way the first film’s trailer never did! You hear the phrase “R.I.P.D. sequel” and you instinctively scowl, but what I’m seeing here looks way more watchable than I’d have expected. Okay!
As previously mentioned, R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned is a prequel to Robert Schwentke’s 2013 original. In that film, Jeff Bridges played an old coot by the name of Roy Pulsipher, a dead sheriff who joins forces with Ryan Reynolds’ hotshot cop character to, I dunno, arrest ghosts or something. Here we’re getting Pulsipher’s backstory, with Donovan in the Bridges role and a new cast of characters filling out the rest of the screen.
Here’s how SyFy’s describing the film:
“R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned stars Burn Notice alum Jeffrey Donovan as Pulsipher, who gets recruited to fight the forces of evil after he’s picked off by an outlaw just before his daughter’s wedding. Hoping to revisit his daughter one last time, the rugged sheriff returns to the mortal plane with a mysterious swordswoman, Jeanne (Penelope Mitchell), at his side, ready to battle paranormal threats on the American frontier.”
Never in a million years did I expect to be writing about an R.I.P.D. prequel starring Jeffrey Donovan today, but here we are. You will, of course, be free to take or leave R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned when it hits Netflix and Blu-ray on November 15th, but I think I’ll give it a day in court. Why not? This prequel has already surprised me once just by existing; maybe I’ll get surprised again!
