Robert Downey Jr. starring in Steven Spielberg's 'Harvey' remake?

The official announcement may be a week or two away, but the word is that Robert Downey Jr. is poised to go down the rabbit hole in director Steven Spielberg's  adaptation of "Harvey," the Pulitzer-winning stage play that reached the screen in 1950 with a beloved performance by Jimmy Stewart.

Tom Hanks and Will Smith had been among the Hollywood stars whose names were bandied about when word spread this summer that Spielberg would be updating the gentle classic about a pleasant but somewhat daft man named Elwood P. Dowd whose best pal is a tall, sentient rabbit that no one else can see.

I know Downey is a Stewart fan -- a few months ago when I visited the set of "Iron Man 2" the actor spoke with affection and awe about the late Stewart's nuanced timing and camera sense -- and it will be fascinating to see how he handles a role that Stewart sometimes called the most challenging of his career. It's not quite a done deal, Downey is waiting for a new draft of the script, but I've heard from several informed sources that it looks strong.

The role was a classic one for Stewart, of course, earning him an Oscar nomination. In Downey's hands the material could tap into an especially bittersweet sort of whimsy (think Peter Sellers and his understated brilliance in "Being There"), but with Spielberg there's always some risk in a sentimental flight of fancy ("Hook" had four actors who now have Oscars and, well, that sure didn't help).

Downey isn't intimidated by Hollywood legend -- this is the man who played "Chaplin" and earned an Academy Award nomination with that tightrope task -- and, all things considered, it will be hard not to smile at a scene where mental-hospital doctors question his cheery character about his history of hallucinations.

Downey is in Atlanta right now shooting the Todd Phillips comedy "Due Date" (a film, by the way, that just added Jamie Foxx to its cast, reuniting the stars of "The Soloist") and moviegoers will get a chance to see him in Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" on Christmas Day. For you regular Hero Complex readers, I know "Harvey" is testing the theme-limits of this blog but, well, when the director of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" makes a movie with "Iron Man," I think I can bend the rules a bit ...

-- Geoff Boucher

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Ritchie says "Sherlock" will "reflect the intelligence on the page"

Try to keep up: Downey on Bruce Jenner, Mickey Mouse and MTV

It's on: Downey drops F-bomb on DC Comics

Marvel looks for its Hollywood happy ending

Hammer time: Chris Hemsworth ready for "Thor" (and "Red Dawn")

Downey and Favreau on board for the Avengers movie

Photos: Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, credit: Marvel Studios and Paramount. Downey portrait by Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times.

'Iron Man 2' takes flight at Comic-Con

“It all started here,” director Jon Favreau told the packed house during Saturday’s “Iron Man 2” session at Comic-Con International. “Nobody cared before you guys did.”

It was just two years ago that “Iron Man” descended on the San Diego Convention Center and went on to make a staggering $318 million in the U.S. (and nearly $600 million worldwide) for a film about industrialist playboy-turned-fully armed superhero Tony Stark -- previously one of Marvel’s lesser-known crime fighters.

Anticipation for the sequel’s panel was so high that even Marvel executives and studio guests had a tough time getting in -- and some didn’t.

Though Favreau said production on "Iron Man 2" wrapped just a week and a half ago, the director brought five minutes of footage from the film, which -- if the reaction from the extra-packed Hall H is any indication -- could top the first. Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is working alone at the outset of the sequel. He rejects another offer to join forces with the group of heroes being assembled by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and is being ordered by the government to turn in his super-powered suit, which has been branded too dangerous a weapon.

The special preview also introduced the new cast members Garry Shandling as the senator demanding Stark’s suit, Don Cheadle as Jim Rhodes (War Machine), Mickey Rourke as bad guy Ivan Vanko (a.k.a. Whiplash), Scarlett Johannson as Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow) and Sam Rockwell as arms merchant Justin Hammer.

Cheadle’s replacement of actor Terrence Howard, who played Rhodes in the first movie,  is dealt with quickly during an introductory exchange between Stark and Rhodes: "It's me. I'm here. Deal with it. Let's move on," Rhodes says. (Howard reportedly exited the sequel after a salary dispute.)

Later, during the Q&A portion of the panel, Cheadle was asked if his performance was informed by Howard’s. The actor said he stuck to what the script dictated, “but I will say, being the vampire that I am, I siphoned off everything I could from Terrence's performance and then modernized it for 2009."

The audience also got its first look at Whiplash’s electrically charged whips and Cheadle donning his own high-tech get-up as War Machine.

"I can't believe your rig was heavier than my rig," Downey joked.

"It was a contractual thing," Cheadle replied.

When asked by a fan what she did to get the part of Black Widow, Johansson said, “I did a couple of knee bends, some lunges -- that came out wrong.” Downey jumped in, addressing the fan, “Did you bump your head? Her audition was her body of work.” Favreau said he liked that Johanssen showed up to their initial meeting having already dyed her hair red for the job. To prepare for the physical nature of the role itself, the actress said she trained in mixed-martial arts and ate a “a lot of egg-white omelets.”

Rourke wasn’t able to attend the panel, but in his absence, his co-stars talked up his commitment to the film. Favreau revealed that, to get into character, Rourke spent some quality time in a Russian prison.

“And I thought I was eccentric,” Downey said. “He’s something else.”

“You know, after perestroika, the first film to arrive in Russia was '9 1/2 Weeks,' " Favreau said. “Mickey’s a sex god in Russia.”  

As for the planned movie "The Avengers," a film that would team up a smorgasbord of Marvel heroes including Iron Man, one fan asked Favreau point-blank: Are you going to direct that film?

"I still have another year on ['Iron Man 2'] to go and they're getting ready to make 'Thor' with Kenneth Branagh directing," Favreau said. "'Avengers' doesn't shoot until we're done with 'Iron Man 2...Hopefully the movies will continue to cross-pollinate with each other and be involved with each other."

How's that for a non-answer?

“Iron Man” is set for a May 2010 release.

-- Denise Martin

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Downey and Favreau on board for the Avengers movie

 

Photo: Robert Downey Jr., left, and Jon Favreau pump up the crowd at Comic-Con during Saturday's "Iron Man 2" panel. Credit: Getty Images

Holmes for the holidays: Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes this December

Writer Scott Timberg always has an interesting take on the overlap between literature and film. Today, on the cover of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar, he looks at Hollywood's bid to bring back the most famous creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who was born 150 years ago this month). Here's an excerpt of the excellent article, which I'm sure you'll want to read in its entirety. -- G.B.

 

He's probably the most adapted literary character in history -- and perhaps the only nonexistent person with an honorary degree from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Upward of 70 actors have portrayed him in more than 200 films, since the early days of silent movies.

But there's not been a major cinematic adaptation of Sherlock Holmes in decades. The classic films of the '30s and '40s, starring Basil Rathbone as Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal detective, shut down the production of Holmes films for years, and the Jeremy Brett-starring series on Britain's Granada Television, broadcast in the '80s and early '90s, has likely intimidated would-be filmmakers as well.

But heading our way are two very different films starring the Victorian detective

The first, "Sherlock Holmes," stars Robert Downey Jr. as the sleuth with Jude Law as sidekick John Watson. Though these are two respected actors, the Warner Bros. film will not be a thesp-fest but an action movie based on a graphic novel by Hollywood executive Lionel Wigram, who spent years trying to get the project taken seriously.

The film has finished shooting -- with most of the exteriors in London, Manchester and Liverpool -- and is scheduled to open Christmas Day. "I didn't want deerstalkers and pipes," Guy Ritchie, the film's director, said of the sleuth's famous hat and favorite hobby. "They're typical iconic images of Holmes, but we're starting from scratch."

The second, still untitled and in pre-production, will go for a comic tone, with "Borat" star Sacha Baron Cohen as detective and Will Ferrell as associate. (Etan Cohen, who co-wrote "Tropic Thunder," will write the screenplay, with lad-film demigod Judd Apatow as executive producer.)

Columbia executives -- who chose not to contribute to this story -- have said that their movie will be as different from the Downey film as "Austin Powers" was from James Bond. "Just the idea of Sacha and Will as Sherlock Holmes and Watson makes us laugh," the studio's co-president, Matt Tolmach, told Variety last year.

The films will be scrutinized, of course, by both general audiences and the millions of rabid Holmes fans the world over. "We've had to rely on our parents' or grandparents' Holmes," said Barbara Roden, a member of the Baker Street Irregulars fan group who runs Calabash, a press in British Columbia for Sherlockian research. "I'm hoping we get a 21st century Holmes, one for our generation."

Holmes himself was a morphine and cocaine addict, a formidable martial artist and a self-proclaimed bohemian who'd gladly stay up all night to puzzle out a case.

As described in Conan Doyle's 56 stories and four short novels -- written mostly between the 1880s and 1910s -- the sleuth also played by his own rules. "I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments," Holmes says to Watson while auditioning him as a potential roommate. "Would that annoy you?"

But he's been domesticated by the years and come to be seen as what Roden calls "a Victorian fuddy-duddy." As Michael Chabon points out in his essay "Fan Fictions: On Sherlock Holmes," Conan Doyle's stories have been met with condescension for more than 100 years, the suspicion that their popularity came not from quality but from "the bourgeois thirst for a tidy adventure, or nostalgia for a vanished age (Victorian, or adolescent)."

The bias against Holmes crystallized in Raymond Chandler's manifesto "The Simple Art of Murder." Though not quite naming the detective, Chandler champions the hard-boiled tradition over writers who rely on "hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish."

Some of his condescension came from Conan Doyle himself: He once described having written so many Holmes stories that he felt like he'd eaten too much foie gras. Still, for more than a century, these stories have drawn admirers...

READ THE REST

--Scott Timberg

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Guy Ritchie says his Sherlock will "reflect the intelligence on the page"

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It's on: Downey drops F-bomb on DC Comics

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Sherlock Holmes photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Photo of Basil Rathbone as Sherlcok Holmes from the Los Angeles Times archives.

Christian Bale, Robert Downey Jr., Kristen Bell and Skeletor, all in Everyday Hero headlines

In today's edition of Everyday Hero, your roundup of handpicked fanboy headlines, let's try to work together as professionals...

THE CHRISTIAN THING TO DO: The audio of Christian Bale's enraged outburst on the set of "Terminator Salvation" continues to echo throughout the celebrity-obsessed ether of the Internet. Now there are T-shirts for sale, a nifty soundboard so you can mix-and-match Bale's torrid tantrum and there's a jaunty pop ode to Bale by the L.A. band Mae Shi (which plays tonight in West Hollywood at the Troubadour). And of course there's the brilliant "Bale Out," the club remix of the new John Connor's meltdown. The debate continues, too, about whether this snippet of rage is just a fleeting bad-day kind of moment or if it's a startling glimpse into the true personality of a Hollywood bully. In the audio, you can hear Bale stifle the peacemaking comments of a guy named Bruce -- that would be assistant director and associate producer Bruce Franklin, who is still trying to calm everybody down. Franklin talked to E! and said Bale's rant was a passing moment of little import and came during the filming of the "most emotional" scene in the movie. Frank also said, "He didn’t walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed. He is so dedicated to the craft. I think someone is begging to make some noise about this, but I don’t think it’s fair.” Patrick Goldstein, who writes the Big Picture blog, listened to the rant and shrugged. "If you look back at the history of film," Goldstein writes, "there is a long tradition of brilliant nut cases, from Marlon Brando and Peter Sellers and Rip Torn right through Nick Nolte and Don Johnson to Sean Penn, Joaquin Phoenix and Russell Crowe. Oh -- and did I forget Mickey Rourke? Oscars go for great acting, not necessarily for good behavior. The difference, of course, is that nothing is private anymore." Here's an unexpected take: At Gold Derby, Tom O'Neil suggests that the talented Bale could be ruining his chances to pick up an Oscar in future films (such as Michael Mann's upcoming "Public Enemies") with his growing problem-child reputation: "Bad boys don't win Academy Awards. It's no coincidence that the Oscars' two biggest losers — Peter O'Toole (eight defeats) and Richard Burton (seven) — have been Hollywood's biggest hell-raisers. Or consider Marlon Brando. Early in his career, when he exulted in being a 'tude-heavy dude fond of throwing his fists around Hollywood, he left the Oscar ceremony in 1951 hugely embarrassed — the only cast member of "A Streetcar Named Desire" not to win despite widespread predictions otherwise. Things just got worse after that. Over the next two years Marlon Brando lost best-actor nominations for 'Viva Zapata!' and 'Julius Caesar.' " Interesting...but of course Brando eventually did win (twice), and Russell Crowe wasn't exactly known as a teddy bear when he grabbed the trophy for "Gladiator."   

MASTERS OF THEIR DOMAIN: Is there a 1970s-1980s toy or cartoon series that isn't being drafted for duty as a summer movie? Here's an excerpt from Micheal Fleming's recent update on an, ugh, "Masters of the Universe" project that is ramping up: "Warner Bros. and producer Joel Silver have set 'Kung Fu Panda' co-director John Stevenson to make his live-action directing debut on 'Masters of the Universe,' a reimagining of the signature Mattel toy line. Pic will revolve around He-Man, a prince who transforms into a warrior and becomes the last hope for a magical land being ravaged by the evil Skeletor. Silver is producing through his Silver Pictures banner. Mattel's Barry Waldo will be exec producer. WB acquired the property in 2007, and Justin Marks wrote the first draft of the script based on a story he developed with Neil Ellice. The Mattel property was adapted into the 1980s cartoon series 'He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.' The property was previously turned into a campy flop by Cannon Films in 1987, with Dolph Lungdren as He-Man and 'Frost/Nixon' star Frank Langella as the villainous Skeletor. The film project is a big priority for Mattel, which licenses a high-end line of He-Man toys that are popular with hardcore collectors." [Variety]

HEY HOLMES, WHATTUP?: One of the easiest things to do as journalist is interview Robert Downey Jr. Even when the guy says absolutely nothing, he's effortlessly entertaining. Now there is one problem -- if you happen to be an on-air interviewer, the actor will do everything in his power to upstage you and make you look like a complete stiff. Case in point: Here is Downey on the set of Sherlock Holmes with MTV talking about Mickey Mouse, Bruce Jenner, Rodney Dangerfield...and the death of MTV.

PHOTO OF THE DAY: At the premiere of "Fanboys" there was a photo that comes close to earning the caption Wookiee Nookie...it's Kristen Bell and Chewbacca and things appeared to be getting, uh, hot and hairy. OK, I'll stop now...

ON THIS DATE: It was 26 years ago today that David Cronenberg's "Videodrome" opened in the U.S. and was dubbed a "'Clockwork Orange' of the 1980s" by none other than Andy Warhol. The film starred James Woods and the oh-so-seductive Deborah Harry of Blondie fame, and its plot was a surreal mix of sleaze merchants, warped reality, violence, brain tumors, media excess and entertainment addiction. In other words, it was pretty much just as the Internet is today. To celebrate this anniversary, let's go plant a wet one on our television set...

  Thanks for reading!

-- Geoff Boucher

CREDITS: Christian Bale photo from Getty Images. "Fanboys" premiere photo by Wire Image.

It's official: Robert Downey Jr. will suit up for 'The Avengers,' Jon Favreau on board as an executive producer

 

Marvel Studios announced Tuesday that the "Iron Man" tandem of star Robert Downey Jr. and filmmaker Jon Favreau will assemble for the "Avengers" film, although the role announced for Favreau is that of executive producer, not director.

It's no surprise that Downey will reprise his role for the "Avengers "movie, but the official word is part of the ongoing campaign to stir excitement for the first major motion picture that will bring together superheroes from separate franchises. You can see all of this leading up to some future Comic-Con International panel that will have Downey sitting next to at least two other Oscar-nominated actors: Edward Norton, who played the Hulk this summer and is, by all appearances, on board for more action, as well as Don Cheadle, who will pick up the role of Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes in the "Iron Man" franchise. The Marvel announcement today made his addition to the cast official and made a point to announce that he would be in the "Avengers" film as well.

It's not clear yet who will be playing Thor, the Wasp or Ant-Man in the film, the other founding members from the Marvel Comics hero team that began in 1963 in the classic issue shown here on the left. There's also the question of who will play Captain America (the most famous Avenger, but one who didn't show up until issue No. 4 in the comics) in the hero's solo film as well as the Avengers project that will follow it into theaters in 2011, if all goes as planned. No substantive word yet on the director for either the Cap movie or the Avengers project. Favreau, of course, will direct "Iron Man 2," which is slated for 2010.

'Iron Man' drops F-bomb on DC Comics

Robert Downey Jr. is having a grand old time these days.

The mercurial actor not only starred in the box-office sensation "Iron Man," he now has a spectacular scene-chewing role in "Tropic Thunder," the new No. 1 film at the box office (and recent Public Enemy No. 1 to protesters). Downey is a wonderful nut, an American treasure as far as I'm concerned, and I can tell you firsthand that interviewing him is a dizzying and exhausting experience. The man is one relentless riff.

Take this tongue-in-cheek rant I just read over at indelicately named website Moviehole.net:

"My whole thing is that that I saw 'The Dark Knight.' I feel like I'm dumb because I feel like I don't get how many things that are so smart. It's like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I'm like, 'That's not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.' I loved 'The Prestige' but didn't understand 'The Dark Knight.' Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high brow and so f---ing smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.' You know what? F--- DC comics. That's all I have to say and that's where I'm really coming from."

Was he serious? I doubt that. I know Perez Hilton and his readers are taking this as gospel, but they weren't sitting at the Warren Beatty tribute a few months ago when RDJ wove a long, raunchy, insulting and completely fabricated tale about the guest of honor -- which everyone, including Beatty, loved. I think this rant was every bit as real as "Celebrity Deathmatch."  Read the rest here or, better, check out this extended excerpt from the really excellent profile of Downey by Erik Hedegaard in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. (The newstand version is worth the money, it has interesting stuff on Jon Favreau championing Downey for the "Iron Man" role too, which is not in the abridged online version.)