ROBERT DOWNEY JR TO STAR AS THE NEW 'DOCTOR DO LITTLE!'

Walt Disney Pictures continued to expand their “live-action remake” franchise into a money-manufacturing enterprise with last week’s Beauty and the Beast, which, as of this writing, has made nearly half a billion dollars globally in just one bloody week. However, Disney isn’t the only studio with popular films that could be rebooted for the early 21st century. 

Consider, for example, the hysterical tale of Doctor Dolittle, a veterinarian with the ability to talk to his animal patients. Before the 1990s, the most famous adaptation of Doctor Dolittle was almost certainly the 1967 film starring Rex Harrison, but in 1998, Eddie Murphy starred in a remake that led to four more sequels (mostly direct-to-video). That said, we learned this week that Robert Downey Jr. is now attached to star in The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, based on the character who first appeared in a series of 1920s children’s books by author Hugh Lofting. Stephen Gaghan, who won an Academy Award for writing Traffic (and was also nominated for Syriana), is now working on adapting Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle adventures for Downey. 

It’s worth noting that Downey’s involvement with this talking animal movie comes after years of development on another fantasy/kids remake, Pinocchio (in which he would have played Gepetto), which in some versions (like Disney’s) also features talking animals.  The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle was the subject of a hotly competitive auction this week which was eventually won by Universal Pictures.