Even though he’s booked up for a good chunk of the New Year, that hasn’t stopped Robert Downey Jr. from lining up a number of projects to choose from.
The latest pitch to catch the actor’s eye is a musical that will focus “on two Broadway songwriters who find themselves creatively and financially bankrupt when their big-break musical flops. Searching for inspiration, they take jobs as counselors at the theater camp they attended as kids and hatch a plan for a big comeback.”
The idea was hatched by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt, who are best known for the Pulitizer Prize and Tony Award winning rock opera “Next to Normal.” The duo knew that Downey had attended theatre camp, tailored the pitch to RDJ’s sensibilities and then brought it to Warner Bros. who snatched it up. Team Downey will produce the picture along with Anonymous Content.
The part will require full on singing and piano playing from Robert Downey Jr., but that should be no problem as he’s released an album already and sung in movies before (“The Singing Detective,” for example). RDJ is currently attached to the project but not yet fully committed; we imagine he will wait to see how the script shapes up. And he can definitely take his time deciding as he will be busy shooting “The Avengers” and “Oz: The Great And Powerful” for a good portion of next year. We imagine he’ll than take stock of what projects are available next which currently include: Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “Inherent Vice,” a project CAA is eager to get him to sign on to, the cutesy “How To Talk To Girls” and former Steve McQueen heist pic “Yucatan.” One project he won’t be doing is Alfonso Cuarón‘s “Gravity” which he recently dropped out of due to scheduling difficulties. Le sigh.
Of all these projects, the heist pic and the PTA film are obviously the ones we’d prefer to see him do, but they are all in development stages and as they take shape it remains to be seen if they will be enough to capture the attention of one of Hollywood’s hottest properties.