Whilst Warner Bros. are putting the hours in figuring out how to remake
MGM's 1939 classic Wizard of Oz as a shot-for-shoot do-over, they seemingly can't gather momentum on
Alfonso Cuaron's original space thriller
Gravity. In a not unexpected occurence yesterday the film lost it's holding power -
Robert Downey Jr - and the film is now in danger of collapsing all the way back to Earth. The
Iron Man/Sherlock Holmes star had been interested in the small but scene-stealing part of the wisecracking loud mouth astronaut who bookends the movie but as the film's shooting date kept getting delayed and delayed this year when WB couldn't find a female lead they wanted to pull the trigger on... the actor has eventually had to drop the project from his schedule. Downey Jr is now readying to shoot
The Avengers and
The Great and Powerful Oz and just won't be able to do it. WB are now left with an $80 million, CGI reliant, obscure tentpole that is more of an artistic endeavor than something they can market to Joe Popcorn. Box office queen
Sandra Bullock is still interested to star but her attachment is probably waning everyday she doesn't have the backup of a Robert Downey Jr-type as a co-star. If the film does go ahead... Sandra Bullock would play the female astronaut who attempts to make her way back to earth and to her daughter after a satellite crashes into her space station. Its a challenging role,
Cast Away in space by all accounts, and WB desperately needed a female Tom Hanks to give them a tentpole.
Meanwhile - Robert Downey Jr and his wife producer
Susan Downey are interested in a big screen adaptation of
How To Talk To Girls - a dating advice book written by nine year old
AlecGreven. Yup that's right, a 9 year old. You've probably seen him on various talk shows as the media really took to him as something of a sensation when his school project caught the attention of a publisher... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbB76ejvAro Presumably, Robert Downey won't be playing the nine year old kid but instead some kind of mentor/figure who himself is unlucky in love and could use the advice of the youngling. We can certainly see how with a little bit of effort it could become a broad and cute crowd pleaser.
Ben Karlin (The Daily Show) and
Stu Zickerman (Six Degrees) have wrote the original draft which the Downey's are now looking to adapt into something that suits them.
Shawn Levy (Date Night) is one of the producers of the book at his 21 Laps shingle, so he could conceivably be an early contender to direct.