Many directors are exiting their projects lately. Paul Greengrass exited THE BOURNE 4, Martin Campbell left THE BIRDS remake, and now the great Steven Spielberg has abandoned HARVEY the remake, a project that he has been gung-ho about developing since it was announced back in August. HARVEY is based on on the 1944 Pulitzer-Prize-winning play HARVEY by Mary Chase, that was turned into a movie back in 1950 starring the late great Jimmy Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd who makes friends with a spirit taking the form of a human-sized rabbit named Harvey that only he sees. Their friendship affects every member of the family and the community. The remake is a co-production between 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks. This is the first adapted screenplay by bestselling novelist Jonathan Tropper (The Book of Joe, Everything Changes, Plan B)…
Not long after Spielberg said yes to this project, he approached a great actor named Tom Hanks to play the character Elwood P. Dowd, but no matter how enticing the offer was or a chance to work with Spielberg again, Hanks said no, some say because he has already been described as a modern day Jimmy Stewart, he didn’t want to entertain the idea even more by playing a role that the late great icon once played years ago.
And so the search continued and it went to Robert Downey Jr. Turns out Spielberg and Fox spent months trying to get Downey Jr. on board, he didn’t say yes but he made suggestions on rewrites of Tropper script. Downey Jr. and Spielberg never saw eye to eye on the script which led to Spielberg calling the whole thing off.
The article says Fox 2000 will continue working on making HARVEY the remake possible, one way or the other, sooner or later and could re-approach Spielberg and Downey.
If you could argue or reject Spielberg like what Downey and Hanks did, you know you’re a big star. The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn is already in the bag, though it would take a couple more years before the FX is sharp enough for theatrical release. But what’s next for the great director? I guess this means Spielberg is going to have to try and work on that LINCOLN biopic, I’m sure Liam Neeson is just waiting for a green light.
