After two Iron Man movies, Tim Burton was obviously convinced of the puppeteering potential of one Robert Downey Jr., because now, the director is looking to ask the actor to play Geppetto in the live-action Pinocchio movie wants to make for Warner Bros. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ll watch Robert Downey, Jr. do pretty much anything. When it comes to interesting, talented, and flexible actors, he’s right up there with Johnny Depp, in my opinion … Wait a minute, Johnny Depp wasn’t asked by Tim Burton to play Geppetto? Was he busy?
Downey is said to be expressing “serious interest” in the project, according to The Hollywood Reporter, but no deals have been made yet. Including an official announcement about Burton as the director. Indeed, neither of these things are definitely happening, but people are really liking the screenplay, which was written by Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies) and follows the woodcarver as he attempts to reunite with his lost puppet creation. If Downey and Burton sign on, it will be a quirky, wry, sexy, sexy journey indeed. And we all know Downey has a knack for building and operating humanoid structures, as he demonstrated in Iron Man and its sequel.
As of right now, it seems like there are scheduling issues to be worked out, but Downey really wants to work with Burton, so everyone is trying to shuffle things around. The director is currently wrapping up production on Dark Shadows (which does have Depp in it), but might decide to direct something else instead of Pinocchio. In that case, WB might look for a different director, and maybe Downey will lose interest in the project. And since WB wants so fast-track this thing, we have a feeling there are a lot of crossed fingers for a Burton-Downey collaboration.
Or else, we’re just stuck with Guillermo Del Toro‘s stop-motion version and this horrifying thingamajig:
Yeah. Let’s start asking the Blue Fairy for the charming mofo Geppetto.
(Puppet pic from Flixist)
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
