Robert Downey Jr. may be getting ready to pull double duty for Ben Stiller. Bleeding Cool is reporting from unnamed sources that the Iron Man star could end up playing both Pinocchio and Gepetto in a new live-action adaptation of the classing doll-to-boy fairy tale.
We first heard about this project back in May, shortly after Downey Jr. had attended the annual CinemaCon event in Las Vegas. At the time the star had mentioned that he was interested in reuniting with Stiller for the first time since Tropic Thunder on his Pinocchio project. At the time Warner Bros. was talking to the director about possibly helming the project but no formal negotiations had started. If this new report is accurate, it seems as though Stiller is now moving forward with the project.
According to Bleeding Cool's sources, Downey Jr. will be playing "a younger Gepetto than you might expect" - one around the star's current age - and will either be using motion-capture to play the inventor's little wooden creation or simply provide a voice for "an actual physical form" - which was apparently in the original plans back when the project was in earlier stages of development. The site categorizes the new version of Pinocchio himself as a "naughty boy" who gets up to mischief, but is quite charming at the same time. Isn't that the character description for most Robert Downey Jr. roles these days?
While Iron Man 3 now sits as the fifth highest grossing film of all time worldwide, Downey Jr. isn't taking any time to lie back and bathe in his success. He is currently working on both David Dobkin's The Judge, a dramedy that pairs him with the likes of Robert Duvall and Vera Farmiga, and Chef, which brings him together with director Jon Favreau for the first time outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He will also be climbing back into his Iron Man armor next year when Joss Whedon brings all of his superheroes back together for production on The Avengers 2, getting ready to be released in May 2015.
Stiller, meanwhile, has been keeping busy this year putting together his latest directorial effort The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which will be out in December. I was absolutely blown away by the footage I saw from the movie at CinemaCon in April and it is easily one of my most anticipated films in the last half of 2013. Written by Steven Conrad and based on the short story by James Thurber, the movie also stars Sean Penn, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Patton Oswalt and Kathryn Hahn.
