While their previous filmography is rather diverse (Crazy/Beautiful to Clash of the Titans), screenwriters Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay tackled a whole new genre with the upcoming R.I.P.D.—a buddy cop movie.  The film is based on the Dark Horse comic of the same name and stars Ryan Reynolds as a newly deceased cop who joins a group of undead officers in the “Rest In Peace Department” to help combat a rising force of nefarious corpses.  Reynolds is introduced to the world of the dead by an R.I.P.D. veteran played by Jeff Bridges, and what follows is a buddy cop film of sorts with a supernatural bent as gleaned by the pic’s recent trailer.

With the film hitting theaters July 19th, I recently sat down with Manfredi and Hay for an extended interview.  During our wide ranging conversation they talked about how they started writing together, how Crazy/Beautiful happened, R.I.P.D., Ride Along, The Boys, Big Man Japan, their writing process, and so much more.  Hit the jump to watch.

A feature film adaptation of the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic The Boys has been in the works for quite a while, but thus far the project has had trouble getting off the ground.  Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Other Guys) has been attached to direct since the summer of 2010, but studios have thus far been wary of greenlighting a big budget hard-R anti-superhero movie that centers on a group of special agents tasked with policing the world’s superheroes by any means necessary. Steve recently sat down with screenwriters Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay in anticipation of this summer’s supernatural actioner R.I.P.D., and during the course of the conversation the duo also talked extensively about The Boys.  They gave an update on the project’s status, talked about McKay’s vision for the adaptation, how involved Ennis and Robertson were in the crafting of the script, and the possibility of Simon Pegg starring.  Hit the jump to read on.

Over the past few days, we’ve been sharing a number of updates from Neal Moritz that were gleaned in Steve’s recent lengthy interview with the producer.  Moritz talked extensively about Fast & Furious 6, 7, and the future of the franchise, he provided revealing updates on the 21 Jump Street sequel, he talked quite a bit about the upcoming supernatural actioner R.I.P.D., and he also provided a promising update on director Shane Black’s developing Doc Savage movie.

While we’ll be providing the full interview here on Collider soon, we wanted to share one last batch of updates on a number of projects.  Hit the jump for news concerning the Battle: Los Angeles sequel, the graphic novel adaptations of Preacher and The Boys, and director D.J. Caruso’s disaster film Invertigo.

Adam McKay‘s feature directing career has always been for Will Ferrell comedies, but for the past several years, McKay has had his eye on adapting Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson‘s comic book series, The Boys.  The comic centers on a group of special agents who are tasked with policing the world’s superheroes and villains by any means necessary.  McKay wanted to make a $100 million hard-R anti-superhero movie, and that pitch tends to make studio executives choke, especially when the property isn’t already established with mainstream audiences.  Earlier this year, Columbia passed on The Boys, which was disappointing but not too surprising.

Back in March of last year, director Adam McKay (The Other Guys) spoke about the difficulty of making a Hard R-rated anti-superhero movie. Turns out that McKay is prophetic. Columbia Pictures has put the adaptation of the Garth Ennis/Darick Robertson comic The Boys into turnaround. The Boys, an informal moniker for a CIA squad tasked with keeping tabs on (and occasionally putting down) superheroes, was apparently not to the studio’s liking. The reports don’t cite any specific reason for the drop, but McKay himself did mention the pic would be a hard sell and compared it to a “current day Watchmen.” Probably not what you want to tell a movie studio. In other news, Columbia Pictures’ sister slate Screen Gems has also backed out of the adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s YA fantasy series, Mortal Instruments. Hit the jump for more.

Director Adam McKay plans to make a radical departure from his comedies with Will Ferrell to direct an adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic series The Boys.  The comic centers on a group of special agents who are tasked with policing the world’s superheroes and villains by any means necessary. McKay says that while he’s still finishing up the script, he’s already started meeting with actors including Russell Crowe for the role of the team’s leader, Billy Butcher:

“I’ve sat with some people. I really like the idea of Russell Crowe for [Billy] Butcher,” said McKay. “We met and had kind of an interesting meeting.”

Hit the jump for more on what McKay had to say about The Boys including the potential difficulty in getting it made.

Thanks to the fans, it seems that Anchorman 2 might still have a heart beat, albeit it a faint one. Collider exclusively talked to director/producer Adam McKay at the premiere of the reality comedy he co-produced The Virginity Hit, which opens in limited release Friday [and opens in wide release on September 24th], and we asked if the fervor and outcry that followed his tweet that “Paramount basically passed on Anchorman 2” helped open the studios eyes at all.

Hit the jump to read his response and also get the latest status updates on The Boys, the HBO series I Don’t Care About Your Band and find out if he’s open to The Other Guys 2.

Right before Comic-Con, I got to sit down with writer-director Adam McKay (Anchorman, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights) to talk about his new comedy The Other Guys.  Starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as two New York City police officers that finally get in on the action, the film is a home run for all involved because not only is the movie incredibly funny, it manages to successfully weave in what’s really going on in the world as part of the storyline.   Unlike some action films where the villain is so unrealistic it detracts from the story, The Other Guys takes the opposite approach with great results.

Anyway, during my exclusive interview with McKay, we talked about the challenges of making a movie with a lot of action, filming on location in New York City, working with Mark Wahlberg and when did he know he could be so funny, the improv process, how he’s a comic book junkie, and he gave me an update on The Boys.  Hit the jump to check it out:

Adam McKay (Step Brothers) has not yet officially signed on to direct Sony Pictures’ adaptation of the Garth Ennis comic The Boys; according to the director, there’s no way he would unless the film meets two criteria:

1) the film is rated R
2) it stars Simon Pegg

When asked if he had talked to Pegg about The Boys, McKay told CHUD, “I haven’t officially signed on yet, so I haven’t had any conversations with anyone.  But [Pegg's] got to do it.  It has to be.”  Hit the jump to find out what role McKay insists Pegg play.

There were many lamentations when it looked like Paramount had passed on a purported sequel to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.  It turns out we had no idea what we were missing.  Writer/director Adam McKay passed along the nature of the project,

“It was a musical.  We were going to do four months on Broadway and then jump right into filming.”

Hit the jump for more comments from McKay.

A few weeks ago we broke the news director Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Other Guys) was in serious talks with Sony Pictures to helm an adaptation of the comic book series The Boys by Garth Ennis (Preacher) and illustrator Darick Robertson (Transmetropolitan).   Cut to today.   With McKay’s The Other Guys junketing in Los Angeles, I was able to sit down for an exclusive interview.  Towards the end of our conversation, I asked him the status of The Boys and what’s his take on the material.

Thankfully, he was super happy to talk about the project and he not only confirmed he’s in talks with the studio, but he answered fans prayers by saying it has to be rated R.  He said, “it doesn’t work unless it’s R.”  He also said he told Sony it has to be R and they are on board with the rating.  McKay then compared The Boys to Watchmen by saying it’s a “current day Watchmen” and he went on to say it looks at what a hero is and “places it in a time where monopolies have bought our country and you incorporate that as well.”  Says he hasn’t been that excited about something in a long time.

Hit the jump to watch what McKay had to say about the project and he also talks about how long he has read comic books.  If you’re a fan of The Boys, you’re going to love what he has to say:

Two sources have told us that director Adam McKay (Anchorman, the upcoming action-comedy The Other Guys) is in serious talks with Sony Pictures to helm an adaptation of the comic book series The Boys.  Near the end of April, we reported that director Samuel Bayer (the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street) said he wanted to adapt the comic, but that “The studio is really hot on [McKay]“.

We’ve been told that McKay is a die-hard comic book fan and that he’s been looking to tackle a movie in the comic book genre.  I always support directors taking risks and heading out into uncharted waters in their career.  Due to the extreme violence and language in the comics, I doubt we’re looking at his fifth feature film with Will Ferrell.  However, just to be clear: no contracts have been signed and in Hollywood everything can change in a heartbeat.  But right now, it looks likely that we’ll be hearing official word soon.

Hit the jump to learn more about the comic.

Today brings sad news for the many Anchorman fans out there.  Remember how the cast and crew were mounting a charge to get a sequel ready for production by February 2011?  While a noble effort, writer/director Adam McKay tweeted, “So bummed. Paramount basically passed on Anchorman 2. Even after we cut our budget down. We tried.”

Paramount’s decision really surprsises me.  Not only was the original’s $85 million domestic gross very profitable in its theatrical run, I can only imagine how much it has made on DVD.  And that’s before stars Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd bloomed into the box office draws they are today.  It appears that even with the pay cuts the actors were reportedly willing to take, the filmmakers and the studio could not agree on a budget.  Oh, well; at least McKay is completely free to take on The Boys, a comic adaptation he’s rumored to be up for.  Likewise, the new McKay/Ferrell comedy The Other Guys should satiate our desire for absurdism this August.

Samuel Bayer has a long history directing music videos and commercials.  While his resume is way too long to list in this intro, some of his famous videos are Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, Blind Melon’s No Rain, almost all of Green Day’s American Idiot videos, and tons of others since 1991.  It’s really an impressive list.

Anyway, he finally made his first feature and it’s New Line’s/Platinum Dunes remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. The movie stars Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker and Kellan Lutz.

To help promote the film, I sat down with Bayer earlier today to talk about his experiences directing the movie, what will be on the Blu-ray/DVD, how does he feel about directors cuts, what will he do next, and a lot more.  As always, I’ve time indexed the interview so you can watch the parts you want.  Hit the jump to check it out:

All these years, Funny or Die co-creator Adam McKay has always chosen “funny”: the standouts among his directing resume include a trilogy of Will Ferrell vehicles–Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers–as well as the forthcoming cop comedy The Other Guys (also starring Ferrell, alongside Mark Wahlberg).  Film School Rejects tapped a trusted source, Nightmare on Elm Street director Samuel Bayer (wait, what?), and found out that McKay’s next project may skew more toward “death”.

You see, Bayer had (and in fact still has) his eyes on adapting The Boys, the Garth Ennis comic series which follows a black-ops team (“The Boys”, natch) that keep superheroes in line via intimidation and, if necessary, murder.  Bayer lamented that such lust may be a lost cause, as it sounds like McKay is the lead candidate for the prime gig.  More after the jump: