– It’s been rumored for a little while now, but the LA Times is reporting that Robert Downey Jr. is set to play the lead in Steven Spielberg’s remake of “Harvey.” The star, currently filming the comedy “Due Date” in Atlanta, is waiting to see the latest draft of the script, by novelist Jonathan Tropper, but the paper’s sources say that it’s looking good, and that the star’s presence is more or less a done deal. Man, if you’d told us five years ago that Robert Downey Jr. would be one of the two or three biggest movie stars in the world, we’d have thought you were bat-shit crazy…
– In an attempt to prevent “Van Helsing” and “Wolverine” from being the stupidest movies of his career, Hugh Jackman is in talks to star in Shawn Levy’s robot boxing movie “Real Steel.” Jackman will play a former pugilist, who becomes a Robot Boxing promoter, and bonds with the son he never knew he had. Jackman is currently appearing on Broadway alongside Daniel Craig in “A Steady Rain,” which is also being developed for the big screen.
– Josh Brolin has signed to play the lead in “Cartel,” a loose remake of the 1993 Italian film “La scorta.” The actor replaces Sean Penn, who dropped out in order to take a sabbatical from acting for personal reasons, in the role of a father trying to protect his son after his wife is murdered by a Mexican drug cartel. The picture will be directed by Asger Leth, who was behind the documentary “Ghosts of Cite Soleil,” from a script by Peter Craig (the upcoming Ben Affleck crime thriller “The Town”). It sounds a bit like an early-’90s Harrison Ford vehicle, but it’s good to see Brolin getting lead roles that aren’t chum like “Jonah Hex.”
– In a piece lamenting the box office failure of “Taking Woodstock” (we weren’t huge fans of the flick, but it didn’t deserve its fate), Ang Lee confirmed that his next film will be an adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel “Life of Pi,” a fable about a boy trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger following a shipwreck. M Night Shyamalan had previously been attached to the project, so it could’ve been worse…
– In the brand new issue of Empire Magazine, Neil Gaiman gives a little interview about a couple of his prospective future projects. Firstly, he confirms that Neil Jordan will be directing the adaptation of his excellent novel “The Graveyard Book,” saying that “Henry Selick, who directed “Coraline,” wanted to do it in stop-motion, but I said no. I want the ghosts in “The Graveyard Book” to be played by classic British actors, like Bill Nighy, Judi Dench and Stephen Fry.” Furthermore, he also gives weight to the persistent rumors that he would be teaming with Guillermo Del Toro for an adaptation of the Marvel character “Doctor Strange”: “Guillermo and I did speak about it, but he’s a busy man. However, if he decides to do it, he knows I will jump on board.” Pick up the new Empire for more from Gaiman.
– Finally, sales company Wild Bunch has pulled their film “Coco Chanel & Igor Stavinsky” from the Zurich Film Festival, to protest the arrest of Roman Polanski, who was picked up by the Swiss authorities while travelling to the festival. Vincent Maraval, from the company, told Screen Daily that “The festival was taken hostage by the authorities… We’re disgusted and if no one does anything (the situation) will just go unnoticed.”