It seems like Robert Downey Jr. may be trading in his high tech suits of armour for wooden puppets and marionette strings in the near future. Earlier this week The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that the Iron Man star is set to be the leading man in Warner Brothers' live action adaptation of the timeless fairy tale Pinocchio. Prolific auteur and Academy Award Nominee Paul Thomas Anderson has been brought on board to write a draft and possibly direct the film.
The project seems like a bit of a passion project for Downey. The THR article mentions that the 50 year old actor has been quietly developing the project over the past couple of years. Over the last six months, RDJ has been tweaking the screenplay's current iteration, which was written by scribe Michael Mitnick, the man behind the script of last year's film adaptation of the young adult novel 'The Giver'.
Downey will play the role of Gepetto, the craftsman who creates Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that dreams of being a becoming a real live human being.
On the other hand, Anderson's role in the film comes as a bit of a surprise. The Writer/Director, known for his sprawling art house fare like Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, and The Master, doesn't exactly seem like the first choice to helm a children's story. However he and Downey are long-time friends and have been itching for the opportunity to work with one another. THR says that Downey was set to play the lead in Anderson's latest film, the Thomas Pynchon adaptation Inherent Vice, but had to walk away from the role due to his commitments with Marvel's blockbuster Avengers franchise.
