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

Ghost in the Hollywood machine: 'Paranormal Activity' beat the odds (and gave Spielberg the willies)

You may remember John Horn's name from our Comic-Con International coverage, he led our team of reporters in San Diego while I took a year off from the expo so I could sit on a beach in Hawaii with my wife and kids. Mahalo, John! Horn is one of the savviest journalists covering Hollywood, and today he's got a cover story in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar on the against-all-odds path of "Paranormal Activity," an unsettling movie that even managed to spook the producer of "Poltergeist."

Steven Spielberg was certain his copy of "Paranormal Activity" was haunted.

It was early 2008, and the director's DreamWorks studio was trying to decide whether it wanted to be a part of the micro-budgeted supernatural thriller. As the story goes, Spielberg had taken a "Paranormal Activity" DVD to his Pacific Palisades estate, and not long after he watched it, the door to his empty bedroom inexplicably locked from the inside, forcing him to summon a locksmith.

While Spielberg didn't want the "Paranormal Activity" disc anywhere near his home -- he brought the movie back to DreamWorks in a garbage bag, colleagues say -- he very much shared his studio's enthusiasm for director Oren Peli's haunting story about the demonic invasion of a couple's suburban tract house.

"Paranormal Activity" was hardly a typical studio production. Peli, an Israeli-born video game designer who had no formal film training, shot the $15,000 movie in a week in 2006 with a no-name cast, a crew of several San Diego friends and a hand-held video camera.

But as Spielberg and the DreamWorks team believed, the movie held a special appeal -- it was original and scary. The challenge was to fit this round peg into a DreamWorks square hole -- a process that would ultimately take more than a year and a half, the delay exacerbated by the slow collapse of Paramount's acquisition of DreamWorks. For a time, it looked as if Spielberg was right: "Paranormal Activity" appeared cursed -- to sit on a shelf.

But now, supported by one of the more unusual marketing and distribution strategies conjured up for a studio release, Paramount is finally opening the film in 13 college towns on Friday, with a wider national rollout planned for mid-October. Scary movies are a dime a dozen these days -- at least 75 horror movies have been released theatrically in the last three years -- and "Paranormal Activity" doesn't have the franchise awareness or recognizable actors that help separate a handful of genre films from the teeming herd.

Yet as preview and film festival audiences can attest, "Paranormal Activity" exhibits something many fright flicks don't -- goose-bump inducing, gore-free scares. Now it's up to the film (and Paramount) to translate Internet buzz into a "Blair Witch Project"-style phenomenon.

"The movie could be stratospheric, or it could just become a cult favorite," says Stuart Ford, the chief executive of international sales agent IM Global, which sold "Paranormal Activity" to more than 50 foreign distributors. "It just depends on whether the studio can catch a wave."

"Paranormal Activity" has beaten the odds before.

Hardly any micro-budget movie ever escapes its creator's basement, and to travel all the way to the slate of a studio that releases "Star Trek" and "Transformers" -- that's beyond exceptional.

"Once every five years, a guy makes a movie for a nickel that can cross over to a broad audience," says "Paranormal Activity" producer Jason Blum, who, as a senior executive at Miramax Films, had a producing credit on "The Reader" and acquired the supernatural thriller "The Others." "And there are about 3,000 of these movies made every year, so this film is about one in 15,000..."

THERE'S MORE, READ THE REST.

-- John Horn

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UPDATED: An earlier version of this post implied that Spielberg was the director of "Poltergeist," a spooky film that Spielberg produced and Tobe Hooper directed. I hope the angry spirits don't come after me. 

Life after 'Harry Potter': What will Hollywood do when the magic is gone?

The "Harry Potter" juggernaut is starting to wind down. As the franchise moves closer to its finish line, Hollywood executives are scrambling to find the Next Big Thing — a multiple movie property that appeals to youngsters, has an epic sweep and fantastic landscapes that suit modern CGI filmmaking. It also needs to lend itself to those all-important licensing deals. Rachel Abramowitz, who writes about the film industry for the Los Angeles Times (and authored the book "Is That a Gun in Your Pocket: The Truth About Female Power in Hollywood"), has some intriguing insights into the quest to replace the boy wizard of the box office.

It was a seminar that top executives at Sony and Paramount couldn't afford to miss. Forty-six of them — including Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton, co-Chairman Amy Pascal, Paramount Film Group President John Lesher and marketing teams from around the globe — crowded around a table recently in one of Sony's conference rooms.

The reason: to hear a presentation on Tintin, the 80-year-old comic strip series by Belgian artist Hergé about a boy reporter and his loyal dog, Snowy. Sony and Paramount are jointly producing "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn," a 3-D film directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson. The $200-million production is set to be one of the big event movies of 2011 and the first in a planned trilogy.

Despite the pedigree of the filmmakers, "Tintin" presents a difficult challenge for both studios: The comic is widely popular abroad but is largely unknown in the U.S.

So during the meeting in Culver City, the studio executives were given a backgrounder by two representatives of the Hergé estate, who touched upon everything Tintin, including the comic strip's history and its cultural significance. At the same time, the executives debated how to prime the U.S. market for "Tintin" and discussed possible release dates.

Sony and Paramount aren't the only Hollywood movie studios that are studying childhood classics and plotting strategy. Others are working on "Yogi Bear," "The Smurfs," "The Lone Ranger" (with Johnny Depp as Tonto) and a live-action adaptation by director M. Night Shyamalan of Nickelodeon's animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender."

Big-screen versions of popular children's books are also being readied, including last century's classic "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien and current favorites such as "Goosebumps" by R.L. Stine and Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians."

The studios want to be ready when a gaping hole opens in the family movie market: In 2011, "Harry Potter," the second-highest-grossing movie franchise in history, will end with its eighth installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II." ...

READ THE REST

— Geoff Boucher

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Is Tintin gay?

Johnny Depp photo from December 2007. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times.

UPDATE: I changed the Tintin book image because the previous image was one we used too often, as a reader pointed out.

Tintin's secret Hollywood adventure

Tatiana Siegel has an interesting piece in Variety about "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn," a long-elusive labor of love for Steven Spielberg that is now underway. The director of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" and "Jaws" is teaming with "Lord of the Rings" and "King Kong" auteur Peter Jackson, and the article gets into the secrecy around the project as well as the logistics of that staggering partnership. It's a lengthy piece and well worth reading. Here's an excerpt:   

Steven Spielberg this week will quietly wrap 32 days of performance-capture lensing on "Tintin," then hand the project to producer Peter Jackson, who will focus on the film's special effects for the next 18 months.

Although the baton-pass is stealthy, "Tintin" is anything but a low-profile project. And that's just the first of many contradictions inherent with the film, which brings together two of cinema's visionaries.

The Tintin comicbook series about a globetrotting teenaged boy reporter, which originated 80 years ago in Belgium, is wildly popular in many countries around the world. In the U.S., however, the character is little-known, especially among children.

Spielberg and Jackson's respective camps have tried to keep a lid on the details of what is expected to become a three-film franchise while hyping the one-of-a-kind aspects of "Tintin's" motion-capture technology, which is being created by Jackson's New Zealand-based effects house Weta.

Just don't ask too many questions. Spielberg's longtime spokesman Marvin Levy, who welcomed a story on "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn," said, "You have to see it to understand [the technology]. It really can't be described."

But he quickly nixed the idea of a visit to the set. "That wouldn't be feasible," he says.

The film's other producer, Kathleen Kennedy, is happy to talk about "Tintin," but admitted the world Spielberg and Jackson are creating is hard to describe.

"It's extremely difficult to explain to someone unless they are standing here next to me," Kennedy says from the Los Angeles set. "And usually then their reaction is, 'Oh my god.'"

READ THE REST

--Geoff Boucher

RELATED: Is Tintin gay?

'X-Men' stage reunion, 'Iron Man' gossip, Steven Spielberg's 'Tintin' and 'Goosebumps' in Everyday Hero headlines

Today's handpicked headlines from the fanboy universe...

"Waiting for Godot," mutant-style? Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, who so memorably led the opposing forces of mutantkind in the "X-Men" films, will reunite on stage next year in a new production of Samuel Beckett's 1952 masterpiece which, by many appraisals, ranks as the most important English-language play of 20th century. The BBC has the story: "The production, which will be directed by Sean Mathias, will tour the UK before opening in London in April at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Stewart will play the tramp Vladimir, while Sir Ian will play Estragon. The actors previously played comic book adversaries Professor X and Magneto in the three films in the 'X-Men' series. The pair first worked together at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977 in Tom Stoppard's 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.' Stewart is currently playing Claudius and the Ghost in the RSC's Stratford-upon-Avon production of 'Hamlet,' which transfers to the West End later this year.  McKellen -- also known for his role as Gandalf in the 'Lord of the Rings' films -- made his last stage appearance in the RSC's acclaimed staging of 'King Lear.' The actor said he 'couldn't be happier...there are no more juicy parts amongst modern classics than Didi and Gogo,' he wrote on his official website." [BBC]

Howard's End: What's the real explaination behind the bouncing of Terrence Howard from the "Iron Man" franchise? Everyone at Marvel Studios and in Jon Favreau's camp has been tight-lipped about the real reasons for Howard's indelicate exit from the cast, but now Nicole Sperling has a report that sounds pretty plausible (but with no sources named): "Hollywood insiders believe the exit stems from Terrence Howard's difficult behavior on the set of 'Iron Man'. But those with intimate knowledge of the situation suggest a far more dramatic backstory: Howard was the first actor signed to the film and, on top of that, was the highest-paid. That's right, more than Gwyneth Paltrow. More than Jeff Bridges. More than Robert Downey Jr. And once the project fully came together, it was too late to renegotiate his deal. It didn't help that, according to one source, Favreau and his producers were ultimately unhappy with Howard's performance and spent a lot of time cutting and reshooting his scenes ... As such, when Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux went to map out the sequel they found themselves minimizing Howard's story line. Once Marvel learned that Favreau was thinking of curtailing the role, the studio went to the actor's agents with a new and drastically reduced offer..." [Entertainment Weekly]

Recycling "Tintin": Filmmaker Steven Spielberg has been flirting with a "Tintin" film adaptation for 25 years now but after plenty of fits and starts, it may finally be moving foward. Anne Thompson has a thorough report on the business twists, including news that Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures are now in talks to co-finance the digital 3-D version of the classic Belgian comics hero. The plan is for Spielberg to direct one film while "Lord of the Rings" autuer Peter Jackson will direct the second one. Thompson writes: "Spielberg had hoped to be in production by this fall. However, when financing fell apart at Universal on the eve of DreamWorks/Paramount divorce, he lost the participation of his lead actor Thomas Sangster. Nonetheless, 'Tintin' is expected to be complete in time for a 2010 release. Jackson will direct the sequel ... Spielberg and Jackson were originally teaming to direct and produce three back-to-back features based on Georges Remi's beloved comic-strip hero 'Tintin.' Spielberg and Jackson selected three stories from Remi's 'The Adventures of Tintin' series, which encompassed 23 books published between 1929 and 1976 about an intrepid junior reporter and his dog, Snowy, who track down stories to the ends of the earth." [Variety]

"Goosebumps," feeling it again? There were massive lines waiting for the autograph of R.L. Stine at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., and Lynn Neary reports that there are high hopes for a revival of the 1990s fan-passion for the author's "Goosebumps" brand-name: 'The author thinks kids are reading more than ever now and his publisher, Scholastic, certainly hopes he's right. Scholastic also published the Harry Potter series, and with no new Potter book in sight, revenues are down sharply and the company is cutting back. Scholastic hopes that magic will strike again with Stine's new Goosebumps HorrorLand series. As for Stine, he's just happy to be doing what he loves -- and what his fans want. 'It's very exciting for me to be back doing it. ... Somehow the Goosebumps audience never really went away. ... It was a world-wide craze, and that can never last. But the books have sold all this time even when there were no new ones coming out,' says Stine. 'I'm just very lucky.' [National Public Radio]

-- Geoff Boucher

'Indiana Jones,' past and present

EXCLUSIVE

Is "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which hits stores today on DVD and Blu-ray, the final adventure for the wise-cracking (and whip-cracking) archaeologist? It sure seemed like it when the movie arrived in theaters in May but then earlier this month a surprisingly enthused Harrison Ford told us that George Lucas is "in think mode" on a suitable story for a fifth Indy film. That's not sitting well with everyone; there's a vocal percentage of fans who think the 21st century revisitation of the great screen hero tainted the earlier glory days of the franchise. I have to wonder if director Steven Spielberg, who certainly has plenty of other projects awaiting him, is really in the mood to take on another Indy project after the backlash this time around, which got pretty personal and malicious, especially during a recent "South Park" spoof. Only time will tell ...

To mark the release today of "Crystal Skull," we bring you two fairly rare movie-set images, one old and one new. Above, a photo shot during an early scene in the classic 1981 film that started it all, "Raiders of the Lost Ark." That chap in the tan coat standing between the camera and the "stunt" Indy is Douglas Slocombe, the film's acclaimed director of photography, whose other credits included "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Jesus Christ Superstar" and one of my personal favorites, "The Lion in Winter." Slocombe, the story goes, never used a light meter on the set of "Raiders," preferring to trust his own eye instead. It was a good instinct: The Brit picked up his third Oscar nomination for his work on the action classic.

The photo below is from last year during the making of "Crystal Skull" and shows Ford, enjoying a cool drink and light moment with Spielberg. In the background there, wearing the white shirt and blue jeans, is Janusz Kaminski, the director of photography for "Crystal Skull" and a two-time Oscar winner (he won for Spielberg's two World War II masterpieces, "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List"). Leave it to two cinematographers to know where to stand when a camera catches a bit of history ... 

   

Thanks to John Singh at Lucasfilm for finding these two great images and sharing them with the Hero Complex. Both photos are property of Lucasfilm, all rights reserved, and they are used here with the company's permission. To learn about all the extras included on Paramount Home Entertainment's DVD and Blu-ray of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," check out the official Indiana Jones website.

-- Geoff Boucher

'South Park' whips up on 'Indiana Jones,' George Lucas and Steven Spielberg

Everyone's head is still spinning from "South Park" last night.

If you missed it, basically Trey Parker and Matt Stone are of the opinion that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg raped the once-glorious "Indiana Jones" franchise with the fourth film released this past summer.

So guess how the two gleeful firebrands metaphorically presented that point of view on last night's new episode? Yep, that's right, "South Park" put those two iconic filmmakers and their archaeologist hero into a reenactment of the most disurbing scene from "Deliverance."

Todd Martens at Show Tracker has the ugly details and some screen grabs from the episode. I'm taking the high road but not posting them here (but, obviously, I'm also taking the low road by putting in a link).

-- Geoff Boucher

RELATED

Harrison Ford tells Hero Complex that George Lucas is in "think mode" on a fifth "Indy" film

Harrison Ford says George Lucas in 'think mode' on another 'Indiana Jones' film

Harrison Ford said Friday that momentum is building for a fifth movie in the "Indiana Jones"  franchise and that George Lucas is already cooking up a suitable plot for a heroic senior citizen with a penchant for whips and fedoras.

"It's crazy but great," the 66-year-old Ford said. "George is in think mode right now."

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" grossed $318 million in the U.S. alone and $770 million worldwide and is expected to be powerhouse seller on DVD and Blu-Ray when it arrives in stores Oct. 14. It was a film that many people in Hollywood assumed would never be made considering the difficulty in finding the right time and the right script to reunite Ford, Lucas and franchise director Steven Spielberg after the 1989 hit "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

Now, though, the latest success and the fact that the franchise's old machinery was revived has Ford thinking a fifth movie is not only a viable idea, but an attractive one.

"It's automatic, really, we did well with the last one and with that having done well and been a positive experience, it's not surprising that some people want to do it again," Ford said.

I asked Ford who specifically is stirring up the idea of another revival, whether it was Lucas, Spielberg or the star himself? "Really, it comes from the ethos, from the ether. It's natural. It's a way of nature, of course, success breed opportunities ... also we don't stay as closely in contact as have in the last year, that's part of it." 

'Disturbia' is a ripoff of 'Rear Window,' lawsuit claims

When the sleeper hit "Disturbia" hit theaters last year, every major movie review of it mentioned the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Rear Window" and with good reason: The makers of "Disturbia" clearly delighted in paying homage to 1954 thriller with their plot and plenty of little touches.

But when exactly does winking homage turn into cinematic thievery?

Attorneys for the estate of the late Sheldon Abend (one of the true characters in Hollywood; more on him in a moment) filed a copyright infringement lawsuit on Monday in Manhattan. The suit names Dreamworks, Paramount Pictures, executive producer Steven Spielberg and others involved in the making of "Disturbia" and claims they essentially made a remake of "Rear Window" without bothering to pay for the rights to the source material. (Here's a bare-bones Associated Press story on the suit, and a meatier Reuters article.)

You can't watch "Disturbia" and not think of "Rear Window": Both present a confined voyeurs (one by injury, one by house-arrest electronic cuff) who spy on their neighbors by staring down through their windows. One neighbor, it turns out, may be a murderer, but can the voyeur prove it and also keep a distance from the danger?

The sublime 1954 film, which starred Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly and Raymond Burr, was based on "It Had to Be Murder," a short story by Cornell Woolrich from 1942. Woolrich died in 1968 and the rights to the story were bought by Abend.

Abend, who was a boxer and a tug-boat coal-stoker before entering the literary and film world, died in 2003. He represented the author estates of Tennessee Williams, George Bernard Shaw and Damon Runyon, and with his Stetson hat and out-sized persona he seemed like one of the latter's colorful characters. Gary North wrote a very interesting obituary of Abend for Daily Variety that discusses a previous lawsuit involving "Rear Window" as a property that set a notable precedent. Abend was on the winning side that time, we'll see how it turns out for his estate.

It's hardly new in Hollywood to cop someone else's idea. In fact, here's a whole photo gallery of "non-remake" remakes that was compiled by Patrick Kevin Day, a good friend to the Hero Complex. But "Disturbia" does seem like one of the most brazen examples of "borrowing" the story and spirit of a film, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The timing of the lawsuit is probably uncomfortable since the "Disturbia" team -- led by executive producer Spielberg, director D.J. Caruso and star Shia LaBeouf -- are back on Sept. 26 with "Eagle Eye," a high-tech thriller. I visited the set earlier this year, I've seen a good chunk of the film, and what did it's man-on-the-run premise instantly remind me of? That would be "North by Northwest."