It’s been more than a year since Robert Downey Jr. put on a show with arguably his best performance of his career in Oppenheimer, which won him his first ever Academy Award. He has featured on the small screen in The Sympathizer, which saw him earn an Emmy nomination for his performance, but news of his big screen return outside of Marve has been mostly silent since Oppenheimer left theaters. That all changed today, as Deadline reports that RDJ is circling a role in The Hider, an adaptation of Julianna Baggott‘s short story of the same name. Plot details about the film are being kept under heavy wraps and additional casting is underway, but Marvel veterans Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari have been tapped to write the screen adaptation.
Barrer and Ferrari made their screenwriting debut in 2018 on Ant-Man and the Wasp, and have since worked on every subsequent project together such as Die in a Gunfight and No Exit, and they most recently wrote the script for Transformers One, the animated Transformers flick that is closing in on $100 million at the worldwide box office. They have also been tapped to write the pilot for Quantum and Woody, an upcoming superhero series starring Joel McHale as Woody Henderson. The two will also work together on other projects that have been confirmed to be in development, such as Leave, Down Under Cover, Gnomes, and Young Blood, but few details are known about each at the time. Barrer and Ferrari have worked with other Marvel stars in Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johansson on Transformers One, and now they will team with Marvel‘s biggest mascot for a brand-new project.
Robert Downey Jr. Made Headlines With His Return to Marvel
Arguably the biggest news of the year came out of San Diego Comic-Con when Kevin Feige took to the stage at Hall H to announce that Robert Downey Jr. will return to Marvel, but not in his signature role as Iron Man. Downey will star as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, replacing Kang the Conqueror as the feature villain after Jonathan Majors was fired. Marvel also announced that previous Avengers directors Joe and Anthony Russo would return to helm both films, reuniting the trio that is directly responsible for several of the highest-grossing movies of all-time.
The Hider does not yet have an official release date and the project is only in early development. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates and watch RDJ‘s Oscar-winning performance in Oppenheimer, which is now streaming on Prime Video.
via Collider