Unless We're All Being Pranked, Paul Thomas Anderson Is Making a Live Action 'Pinocchio' Starring Robert Downey Jr

The reimagined live-action kids’ story trend is undeniably huge in Hollywood right now, and studios are pouring money into however many of these projects they can get their hands on. From Cinderella to Maleficent to the upcoming double Jungle Book movies, these films have huge celebrities attached and make a sh*t ton of money. So it shouldn’t be surprising to see two big names signed on for a Pinocchio retelling. Except it really, really is… when those two names are Robert Downey Jr and Paul Thomas Anderson. These two seem like an unlikely pair for ANY project, let alone something that, yes, has Grimm-er roots, but most of us think of as Disney. From the sound of it though, maybe the pairing isn’t as unlikely as it seems. As the Hollywood Reporter tells us,

Though the film would seem far outside of Anderson’s wheelhouse, the move shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Downey was poised to star in Anderson’s Inherent Vice until his Avengers: Age of Ultron obligations got in the way and Joaquin Phoenix stepped in to play the lead. Downey and Anderson are good friends and have been looking to work together for some time.

First of all, Inherent Vice would have been SO bad with RDJ. Though I’m having trouble imagining him in any of Anderson’s work. Joaquin Phoenix seems like PTA’s perfect muse for that type he writes so well- the lost, depressed, flighty or stoned puppy-men. Of course, there are exceptions (he did direct Daniel Day Lewis, after all), but Robert Downey Jr. has carved out a niche pretty much exclusively playing the opposite of that.

Now onto the question of who the hell Downey could be playing. He could be a young(er), rakish Gepetto. Or maybe it’s Pinocchio’s later-in-life sequel (real boy turned real man!). What I’m hoping for though? A movie about the black market Pleasure Island human trafficking syndicate.