No, not that one. Downey Jr. has been signed to play the comic book hero Iron Man in a new movie to be directed by Jon Favreau. He’ll play Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist who is captured and forced to create a weapon and instead creates a suit he uses to escape and, later, fight bad guys.
He’s also an alcoholic, as was established in an excellent story arc decades back by David Michelinie and Bob Layton, which makes Downey Jr — a brilliant actor with his own personal demons — an inspired choice. Hopefully they won’t go into Ang-Lee-“Hulk” confusing melodrama, but I gotta admit, now I’m looking forward to “Iron Man” when it wasn’t really on my radar before.