Robert Ripley, the cartoonist who showcased oddities from around the world on radio, television, and in the famous comic strip “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”, is on his way to the big screen sometime in 2011.

Paramount will release Ripley’s Believe It or Not, which already has Jim Carrey attached to play Ripley. Originally scheduled to be a biopic, scifi wire reports John Collee, the screenwriter of Happy Feet and Zach Snyder’s upcoming Guardians of Ga’Hoole, is writing a more fantastical version of a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the writers of Carrey’s 1999 film Man on the Moon.

Chris Columbus has been hired to direct the more outlandish Ripley’s Believe It or Not, replacing Tim Burton, who would have directed Alexander and Karaszewski’s more biographical script. Carrey was reportedly unhappy with Burton’s approach, and Burton is no longer attached to the project.

Columbus, who was promoting the comedy I Love You, Beth Cooper last week, confirmed his Ripley film would be less grounded in reality, and that “believe it or not” would be the central question posed to viewers.

“My take on Ripley is to believe it,” Columbus said. “My take on Ripley is to turn it into a fantasy film, really: a big fantasy adventure film where we believe that all of these oddities are possible.”

Although Columbus would not reveal specific oddities that the movie might portray in chronicling the adventures of Ripley, who died in 1949, he did say the comic strip would be referenced. “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” premiered in The New York Globe in 1918 and continues to be published in one form or another today.

“I think we’ll certainly relate to the comic strip a lot in the film,” Columbus added. “I don’t want to talk too much about it, because there are too many surprises.”

He said Collee’s draft would likely be finished within the next few months.