Hoping to dig himself out of his serious recent rut (films in development shut down due to budget worries, actual releases like Fun With Dick And Jane and The Number 23 flopping), Jim Carrey is circling a fresh project.

20th Century Fox is trying to convince the actor to take some Me Time. The studio has nabbed a spec script from Ian Roberts and Jay Martel that follows a writer scribbling a tome about his great-great grandmother. When his wife – who’s pregnant with their child – needs some full-time bed rest, he’s left to care for the house and other child, but finds that he just can’t measure up to his ancestor’s tales of life in the wild west.

While it doesn’t sound like a laugh riot to us, the script is still in its early stages – so early, in fact, that JC won’t sign on the dotted until he sees a re-written draft.

But things seem to be looking up a little for the man formerly known as Ace Ventura. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!, the biopic of the man who founded those museums of oddness, looks like it’s finally back on track, with Paramount resurrecting the film, Tim Burton returning to direct and Steve Oedekerk taking a crack at the script, presumably to make it cheaper and add more fart jokes. Well, maybe not the last bit…