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Monday
16Jun2008

Robert Downey Jr. to Play 'Cowboys and Aliens'

DateMonday, June 16, 2008 at 3:00PM
From Iron Man to Tropic Thunder to maybe playing Hugh Hefner and Sherlock Holmes to being a featured courtside celebrity during the NBA Finals in Los Angeles. Yes, it's been a hell of a month for Robert Downey Jr. So what will he do for an encore?

The Guardian is reporting that Downey is in serious talks to star in the graphic novel adaptation Cowboys and Aliens for producers Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg.

The book, written by Fred van Lente and Andrew Foley, is a fantastical story about Old West cowboys and Indians engulfed in the middle of their own conflict when visitors from another galaxy touch down in Silver City, Arizona, forcing the two sides to work together to fight off the alien attackers.

Downey would play a former sharp-shooter caught in the middle of the action.

It's quite a career turnaround for Downey. Earlier this year, he told GQ about seeing other actors zoom past him on the career path:

"When Tobey Maguire and I were doing Wonder Boys, we went to see The Matrix, and that was a big deal. I've known Keanu for ages. I watched the whole thing happen for him. Then I saw Tobey with his whole Spider-Man thing. And then I saw, in a different way, what Johnny [Depp] did with the whole Pirates thing. You get to firmly embed yourself in the unconscious of the planet in a way that's so clearly not important that you don't have to take it all that seriously. I just thought it would be really fun not just to get to do this - or maybe a couple of these - but also to get to be endorsed by Burger King and Hasbro and Slurpee cups."

I would say, though, that nobody, not even Depp, has skyrocketed from indie film icon to A-list star in the way Downey will. He's lining up too many big movies, playing a couple of icons in Holmes and Hefner, and saying yes to the really cool projects he wasn't even in a position to turn down a few years ago, like playing a Wild West cowboy fighting aliens.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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