“Red” Director Robert Schwentke Getting “R.I.P.D.”

Robert Schwentke's upcoming action-comedy "Red" has been generating enough buzz that it's helped the director landed yet another comic-book adaptation, this one starring Ryan Reynolds.

"RIPD" ("Rest In Peace Department") has Reynolds set to star as Nick Cruz, a cop murdered in the line of duty who agrees to join God's police force in return for a chance to catch his killer. Schwentke finally firmed up a deal to direct, according to Deadline.

"It’s terrific, based on the graphic novel. It’s about two cops, one recently dead and a gunslinger who’s been dead for hundreds of years who work on the Rest in Peace department - which is the police department of the dead," producer Neal Moritz told Collider earlier this year. "It takes place on a normal day and it’s about trying to keep the dead quiet."

Schwentke got the job after McG ("Terminator: Salvation") opted instead for "This Means War," an action romcom about a love triangle that leaves New York City in ruins, reported 24 Frames.

"RIPD" had hoped to start shooting in January, but it now appears that things will be delayed until summer 2011, after Reynolds finishes shooting the body-switch comedy "The Change-Up" with Jason Bateman and the action-thriller "Safe House" with Denzel Washington.

Schwentke's "Red," which stars Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich as a team of retired assassins who must reunite when the CIA decides they must die, comes out Oct. 15. And Reynolds can next be seen Oct. 8 in the highly anticipated "Buried," in which he plays a man who awakens in a coffin with only a cell phone and a Zippo lighter.

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