Slowly distancing himself from the Iron Man franchise (despite appearing in the second Avengers movie next year), Robert Downey Jr. was recently seen in the well executed drama The Judge, and is now looking to pursue his next project with Team Downey (Rob and wife Susan’s own production company); picking up a treatment written by the late Steve McQueen back in the 1960s.
Academy Award nominated writer Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) has been tasked with adapting Yucatan; McQueen’s 1700 page treatment, which was originally designed to have seen The Great Escape star take on the lead role, involving a renegade salvage expert searching for Mayan treasure in the Yucatan Peninsula.
Apparently found amongst other treatments in two leather-bound trunks after McQueen’s death, Yucatan obviously shows enough promise to invest in and, should the script prove worthy (obviously a number of changes will need to be made to update the tale, and accommodate for a rather different actor), will see Robert Downey Jr. taking on the role once planned for Steve McQueen.
Matt Wheeldon – @TheMattWheeldon.
Source: Deadline.
