It’s a sad day when an original and engaging script from a talented director fails to find an easy passage to the big screen.
If this rumour from Deadline is true, and Robert Downey Jr.’s schedule is making his co-starring role in Alfonso Cuaron’s 3D space survival film Gravity looking increasingly unlikely, then it may well throw the project off kilter and potentially shut it down.
Though Downey Jr.’s role is only a supporting one it is crucial to the film’s set-up and Downey Jr. has been attached from early on in the film’s production while leading ladies Angelina Jolie, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman floated by without hanging onto the project. Now that Sandra Bullock looks likely to be lead role Deadline report that she is trying to get the Iron Man star to stay on the project, though the Sherlock Holmes sequel and his work for Marvel in the third Iron Man film, as well as his role in The Avengers, will keep Downey Jr. busy for the foreseeable future. This is not to mention his supposed leading role in the Sam Raimi’s Oz: The Great and Powerful.
If he does leave the project it is highly likely that Cuaron will want to fill the role quickly, having had so much trouble getting his female lead, and it’s no mean feat to find someone as recoginsable and, I hate to use this word, ‘bankable’ as Downey Jr. for the film.
Here’s hoping schedules can be worked out, Gravity is a very strong story which will be quite an experience when/if it hits the screen.
