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Four years after making his Deadpool debut in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds starred in another comic book movie, R.I.P.D. That film, based on Peter M. Lenkov’s 999 comic book of the same name, is set to stop streaming on Netflix on January 1st. The movie stars Reynolds as Nick Walker, a recently slain cop who is recruited into the legendary afterlife police R.I.P.D. and paired up with veteran undead sheriff Roicephus “Roy” Pulsipher (Jeff Bridges) to find spirits attempting to avoid their final judgement.
R.I.P.D. Killed the Intended Franchise
R.I.P.D. was intended to launch an entire franchise with sequels that Lenkov told Syfy he hoped would explore “different partnerships — whether it was a cop from the Al Capone days in Chicago partnered up with somebody from the Miami Vice days.” Unfortunately, none of that ever came to fruition after the first film proved to be a massive franchise killer.
Although the film was set up to be the next big summer blockbuster with a Men in Black-esque concept and major star power from Reynolds and Bridges, the movie turned out to be a colossal flop. R.I.P.D. only grossed $78 million against an estimated $130 million budget and earned disastrous Rotten Tomatoes critic and audience scores of just 13% and 38%, making it the lowest-rated movie in Reynolds’ career. Despite some “turn your brain off” action fun, R.I.P.D. was a massively underwhelming final project that too heavily leaned on Men in Black without adding anything new, instead feeling like a cheap knockoff with weak CGI, an inconsistent tone, and an overall poor execution. Even Reynolds and Bridges couldn’t save the film, their onscreen chemistry falling flat and their characters too cartoonish and uninteresting.
