Mark Ruffalo As "Columbo"?....Yes Please!!

It started earlier this week with a tweet from writer Gary Whitta:

Oh hey, @MarkRuffalo and I are both repped by UTA. Which means I’m about 0.00001% closer to getting this done. #Columbo
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) July 16, 2014

Actor  Mark Ruffalo chimed in with

@MysteryExec @garywhitta Ed Soloman approached me on this about a month ago. We are thinking a movie.
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) July 16, 2014

"Now You See Me" screenwriter Ed Solomon approached Ruffalo about a month ago about the notion of a cinematic version of the late great Peter Falk's iconic TV detective series Columbo in which Rufalo would star.

Falk first played the role of Lieutenant Columbo in the 1968 TV movie Prescription: Murder, which was originally written as a Broadway play and then reworked for television. The film set up a number of tropes for the upcoming TV series: The seeming ineptitude of detective Columbo and the intricate cat-and-mouse mysteries in which the killer, known to viewers, seemed to dance around the detective's bumbling investigation.

The premise  became a TV series in 1971, with a young 25-year-old Steven Spielberg directing the very first episode. The series was a hit, and ran through 1977 in 90 or 120 minute movie-length segments that appeared every third week, with a wide variety of acclaimed guest stars and spun  off the short-lived Mrs. Columbo (based on the detective's unseen wife), starring a young Kate Mulgrew.

In all, Falk received four Emmy Awards and 10 nominations playing the role, which he performrd from 1968 to a special 2003 episode of the series.

So far the reaction to Ruffalo potentially taking the role has been almost universally positive.