2013 gave fans the Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges team-up disaster R.I.P.D., which was met with generally negative reviews and bombed at the box office. Despite the comic book adaptation’s disappointing run in theaters, a sequel has been released to the public and is doing quite well on streaming.
According to Flix Patrol, R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned managed to climb up to the #3 spot on Netflix’s Top 10 Movies list on Nov. 16 and even ranked higher than the popular Enola Holmes sequel starring Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown. This direct-to-DVD prequel stars Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice, Fargo) and Rachel Adedeji (The X Factor) and tells the story of how Bridges’ character Roicephus “Roy” Pulsipher, got recruited by the Rest in Peace Department.
The movie currently has a 30 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and one negative critic review. Most of the verified audience scored the film less than one star and blamed the writing for many of its faults. Additionally, Battle Royal With Cheese’s Matt Conway gave the sequel a negative review and wrote that it doesn’t make an effort “to deliver more than forgettable fluff for viewers.”
Universal Pictures announced the comic book adaptation sequel in Aug. 2022, shocking many who weren’t big fans of the 2013 sci-fi actioner. The project was helmed by director Paul Leyden, who previously directed 17 episodes of the Crackle streaming series Cleaners and was a working television actor who appeared in shows such as The Young and the Restless, LAX, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
While Leyden does have a few directing credits to his name, he doesn’t have the resume of German director and screenwriter Robert Schwentke, who directed the first R.I.P.D. Prior to helming the first movie, Schwentke directed 2005’s Flightplan starring Jodie Foster and the 2009 romantic sci-fi drama The Time Traveler’s Wife. After completing work on R.I.P.D., Schwentke went on to direct the last two movies of Lionsgate Studio’s Divergent franchise.
R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned was released directly to Blu-Ray and DVD on Nov. 15 and is now available to stream on Netflix.
