The on again, off again, "Ripley's Believe It or Not" project is back on, said Jim Carrey. He will star as Robert Ripley in Tim Burton's film.

"It’s going to be wonderful," Carrey said. "It’s just an incredible world to open up. He was a very much the champion of the underdog and people who were a little bit different and freakish."

Also known as quite a fashionable man, with plenty of lovely ladies on his arm, the film may address Ripley's romantic side too. "He was about celebrating life. He was about proving its special-ness."


Carrey in this month's "The Number 23"

As for the shifting status of Ripley's on the production schedule, Carrey explained it was not a money issue. "Financing never went away. We just got kind of close to going into production and I just felt like the script wasn't quite where it could have been. I had a lot of ideas that would have facilitated a change in plan, a change of approach to the production of it so I just thought it could be more than it was."

Carrey expects to begin filming in early 2008.