Robert Downey Jr. sinks USS Indianapolis, discusses working with Shane Black on Iron Man 3

August 19th 2011, 12:09am

Robert Downey Jr. has been going non-stop for the past few years, spending quite a bit of that time in suits that are either sharp and tailored or armor plated.

Between slapping on Stark’s red and gold again, Downey will wear his producer pants for a big-screen telling of the USS Indianapolis, the WWII vessel whose crew and their tragic shark-infested ordeal was famously recounted by Robert Shaw’s Quint in the famous JAWS monologue.

While previous attempts to tell the story on the big screen never surfaced, this Warner Bros. project will try it “through the eyes of Hunter Scott, the 11-year old boy who embarked on a journey to exonerate the Indianapolis’ court-martialed captain.” (Scott was inspired by that gripping JAWS scene to learn more about the incident.) Writer Robert Schenkkan (HBO’s “The Pacific”) is working with the Downeys on developing the script.

Meanwhile, Downey is taking a breather from saving the Marvel movie universe (he’s nearly done filming Joss Whedon’s THE AVENGERS), but is already discussing his return to the character for IRON MAN 3. He’s keeping zipped lips about story details, but has this to say to Hero Complex about reuniting with KISS KISS BANG BANG director Shane Black: “He’s more than the sum of his parts and he’s also kind of been a sleeper for a long time. We’re not talking much about [the script] right now because Shane is off writing and we talked before that and when we are talking again the talking is going to be over pretty quick [because we’re on the same page]. It’s kind of like we’re fighting on the same side and at the same time we’re circling each other, so it’s all great. It should be great.“

“Bringing in Shane Black to write and direct IRON MAN 3 to me is basically the only transition from Favreau to a ‘next thing’ that Favreau and the audience and Marvel and I could ever actually sign off on,” Downey says.

But just because Favreau won’t be sitting in the director’s chair doesn’t mean he won’t be back, as Downey hints: “The fun thing is going to be getting Happy [Hogan, Stark’s bodyguard played by Favs] in the movie.” (Now how about some confirmation of War Machine??)

With luck, we’ll see a bit more of the Marvel hero and some AVENGERS action from the D23 Disney Expo happening this weekend.