How prescient of Edgar Allen Poe to be photographed with a look as if someone just farted in the room considering the recently surfaced related news that Robert Downey Jr. would like to star in a biopic of the writer… penned by apparent closeted poetry enthusiast Sylvester Stallone.
What? No, you read that right. At a recent press junket for “The Soloist,” Robert Downey Jr. was asked what he would like to do next and his response was, “Sylvester Stallone wrote a great script that he wants to direct about Edgar Allen Poe.”
The Metro article from whence it came says RDJ was “grinning” when he said this. Does that mean he was pulling their leg? Nope, Stallone wrote a script called, “Poe,” and it has been around since 2005. When the announcement was first made in Variety, Stallone’s leading man of choice was Robert Downey Jr. Of course back then, Downey’s name was still relatively mud (2003 and “The Singing Detective” had started to get him back on his feet), after all his various array of spectacularly public drug busts. But it sounds like Downey Jr. is still interested (and perhaps thought it was great of Stallone to think of him before his comeback was in full swing).
According to Variety in Sept. 2008, the biopic is Stallone’s “dream project” (though back then they also said RDJ was “off the project”). As per JoBlo, the film will focus on the “scribe’s darker days when he tipped the bottle a fair bit and went a little loony.” Downey is obviously hotter than the sun right now so if he wants to make this happen (and surely Stallone wants him too) we see no reason why a studio wouldn’t greenlight this project this second.
What does this mean for Viggo Mortensen who was allegedly eyeing the role at one time? Bye, bye Viggo? [via JoBlo]