We have seen Robert Downey Jr in the role of Invincible Iron Man for almost ten years. Now, he will show the other side of him by starring in another upcoming movie, “Dolittle.”
This time around, he will be a whimsical Dr. John Dolittle, a 19th-century physician who can interact with humans and animals, as patients and friends.
This Dolittle film isn’t new to us. This has been played before by Eddie Murphy. The popular one was shown in 1998’s ‘Dr, Dolittle’ and a sequel three years after ‘Dr. Dolittle 2’. The audience enjoyed these movies.
These are from the original novels of Hugh Lofting. In 1967, Sir Rex Harrison was the first ever to play the role of Dr. Dolittle in a live-action film, but it didn’t reach the expectation of the moviegoers. People didn’t like it that much.
This time with Downey, Jr., it will take some of its cues from the 1967 version and will portray more the ones from the novels rather than the adaptation of Murphy’s.
That challenge will be up to him as to how it will give him the originality of this role.
He will need to have good humor like Murphy to be able to make this movie a success without having to act like a copycat of Murphy. This kind of approach is challenging.
How did he come up to this decision, he explained, “I always go ‘Why this movie, why now, why bother?’ And then I, honestly, I looked out the windows, and these alpacas are looking at me and our goats and our Oreo cows and our pigs, the kunekune pigs … it just felt synchronistic. And also, you know, we don’t like to go too long without a challenging project to do together, whether it’s a movie or a kid. “But he also mentioned that his wife helped him with the decision because she said so. … I don’t know, and it turns out it was a good instinct you had, sweetheart.”
His wife, Susan Downey, answered back, “It was fun to pick something that our kids could see. Because even though he’s let our son see the Marvel movies, certain ones, they weren’t able to see any of the movies that we’ve worked on. And so, it was really fun to do something that [they could see]. I think there was a degree of difficulty too that I was excited about with the visual effects and creating worlds that even with something like Sherlock, we didn’t get to do.”
As of Robert Downey Jr. being asked about the possibility of going back to Tony Stark again, he said, “Yeah, anything could happen. I’m enjoying it… As far as I’m concerned, I hung up my guns and I’m good to let it go. I also think Marvel is on this journey now and they’re trying a bunch of other stuff, and I’m excited for them to see how all that goes. It’s a hard project”.
Dr. Dolittle will be shown on January 17.
