A little under a decade ago, Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges starred in RIPD: Rest in Peace Department, a supernatural action-comedy which followed a murdered cop who joined an afterlife law enforcement department to apprehend monsters disguised as humans on Earth. Unfortunately, the film was a box-office bomb, grossing just $78 million worldwide on a $130 million budget. It also received overwhelmingly negative reviews, which made it all the more confusing when a sequel came out of nowhere earlier this year. Universal Pictures have released a brief trailer for RIPD 2: Rise of the Damned, which you can check out above.
The RIPD 2 trailer reveals that the sequel is actually a prequel, taking place in the Old West and focusing on Sheriff Roy Pulsipher, the character played by Jeff Bridges in the first movie. The prequel finds Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) taking on the role of Roy, and he’s joined by Penelope Mitchell (Star Trek: Picard) as a mysterious swordswoman.
Here’s the RIPD 2 synopsis: “The Wild West has gone to Hell, literally, and the world’s best hope of being saved lies in the gun-slinging hands of Sheriff Roy Pulsipher (Jeffrey Donovan) as he becomes the newest officer for the Rest In Peace Department (R.I.P.D.) enforcing the afterlife’s laws. If the Old West was wild while he was alive, wait until Roy sees how weird it gets once he dies. Roy thought joining the R.I.P.D. would give him a chance to revisit his daughter and solve the mystery of his murder. Instead, he has his holsters full with havoc and hellfire when he’s given a mission to stop a dangerous demon from opening a portal to the underworld. The fate of the living and the dead now depends on Roy and his partner Jeanne (Penelope Mitchell), a mysterious swordswoman, as cowboys clash with creatures and undead insanity unleashes apocalyptic chaos.” The sequel was directed by Paul Leyden (Cleaners), who co-wrote the screenplay with Andrew Klein (MacGyver).
RIPD 2: Rise of the Damned will be available to own on Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD on November 15th.