With Robert Downey Jr about to pop up once again in his Iron Man guise in the new Spiderman film it seems that his next film film will be quite a departure as he is about to play the man who can talk to the animals, yes it’s Dr Doolittle with early pre-production in the UK already underway.
Syriana writer/director Stephen Gaghan is at the helm to direct from his own screenplay and the film feature a mixture of live-action and CGI.
The last big-screen adaptation of Hugh Lofting’s children’s books was in 1998 with Eddie Murphy in the title role followed by a sequel. The first screen incarnation was the classic original 1967 musical version of with Rex Harrison and it was a monumental flop effectively putting an end to his career as a leading man for the rest of his life. He’s also rumoured to have behaved appallingly on set to such a degree that cast & crew nicknamed him Tyrannasaurus Rex.
The film was beset with calamity, hardly surprising with all those live animals, and there’s currently a script about the making of the film doing the rounds of Hollywood.
Despite its critical mauling it still earned 9 Oscar nominations although this seems to have been because the studio mounted a massive PR campaign to get the film nominated.
Anyway here’s a clip of Robert Downy Jr storming out of an interview…….
