Robert Downey Jr. stars as the animal whispering Doctor Dolittle in the aptly titled upcoming fantasy-adventrue film, Dolittle.
Seeing as his Marvel days have seemingly come to an end post Avengers: Endgame (2019), Robert Downey Jr. has jumped on board a new all-ages blockbuster film (and potential franchise) in the form of Dolittle.
‘Dolittle’ of course referring to the famous fictional doctor who can talk to animals.
Doctor Dolittle has appeared across various mediums since his creation by author Hugh Lofting one-hundred years ago.
On the film circuit, he was popularised by Eddie Murphy in the 1998 film Doctor Dolittle and its sequel, Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001).
It’s been twenty-plus years since those movies and Universal Pictures along with the producers of Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Maleficent (2014) have decided to resurrect the franchise.
Downey Jr. feels like a great choice after becoming a household name the world over with his recent ten-year long stint at Disney/Marvel.
The film’s first trailer doesn’t give anything away in terms of the plot, though we get a good look at all of the human and fuzzy animal characters that will feature in the film and we get to hear some speak too.
The adventure aspect of this film looks to be its biggest draw, as you’ll also see in the trailer.
Downey Jr. is joined by Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent and Harry Collett in live-action roles and the voice cast features a whos-who of Hollywood talent.
John Cena, Marion Cotillard, Carmen Ejogo, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Tom Holland, Rami Malek, Kumail Nanjiani, Craig Robinson, Octavia Spencer and Emma Thompson all have voice roles, along with Frances de la Tour.
Stephen Gaghan serves as director, whose past films include Syriana (2005) and Gold (2016).
It seems like a strange choice of director, but this is, after all, a studio film, so it shouldn’t really matter who’s in that role.
Dolittle arrives in cinemas on 9 January 2020.
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