According to The Hollywood Reporter, Robert Downey Jr. is in talks to star in Cowboys and Aliens, DreamWorks' adaptation of Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley's graphic novel. (Read Matt's original story on it.)

Downey Jr. would play Zeke Jackson, a former Union Army gunslinger, who is engaged in a battle against the Apache. But the battle between settlers and Native Americans is interrupted when an alien spaceship crashes into the Silver City prairie. Turns out, they have their eye on conquering Earth, forcing the warring westerners to form an uneasy alliance.

The project has been in and out of development for years, but apparently the latest draft is catching some A-list interest. As it was written by Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus, who were behind Iron Man and Children of Men, I am immediately expecting good things out of something that, if handled poorly, could be as bad as Wild Wild West. Good writers and a good actor like Downey Jr. could make this movie incredibly fun. This is how movies like the first Pirates of the Caribbean come about.

I have to say, between this and Downey Jr.'s rumored interest in a comic-based Sherlock Holmes, I wonder if he is going to plunge into Hugh Jackman levels of geekdom. They will have to start fighting each other to get to the best comic book scripts. And that should be a movie all its own.

*A guest review today, from Nick Schager, of Slant Magazine

On the evidence of First Snow, it's apparent that Mark Fergus is a devoted student of classic crime cinema. For his directorial debut, the filmmaker (re-teaming with his Children of Men screenwriting partner Hawk Ostby) delivers a streamlined, straightforward slice of "Sunshine Noir," a sub-genre in which noir's pessimistic thematic preoccupations are transplanted from the shadowy night to the blisteringly bright daytime. As in Fergus' film, this shift also often involves a milieu relocation from the seedy, malevolent city to the imposingly empty rural wasteland, with the omnipresent air of gloom and calamity found not beneath towering skyscrapers and in darkened alleys but, rather, just behind scraggly tumbleweed bushes, across the horizon-seeking interstate, and around the corner from the dilapidated gas stations that sit, like ominous oases, in the middle of the vast nowhere.

Such a fill-up station is the starting point for the turbulent journey of Jimmy (Guy Pearce), a cocky, fast-talking flooring salesman who dreams of making it big selling classic Wurlitzer jukeboxes, and who becomes stranded at an out-of-the-way New Mexico rest stop after his car hits a (literal and figurative) bump in the road. While waiting for repairs, Jimmy entertains himself by having his fortune read by a laid-back psychic named Vacaro (J.K. Simmons), though his mockery of the man's supposed supernatural gifts come to a halt when – after offering up some cryptic comments about impending events – the seer is overwhelmed by violent seizures and, consequently, halts the reading and returns Jimmy's money. Simultaneously amused and mildly annoyed, the salesman nonetheless thinks little of the encounter until the prophesies begin coming true, prompting a return visit to Vacaro during which he's told that death shall arrive with the season's first snowfall.

2006 was a pretty excellent year for newcomer screenwriter Mark Fergus: He helped to bring the phenomenal Children of Men to the big screen (earning himself an Oscar nomination in the process), he got to make his directorial debut (with the upcoming First Snow), and (along with his writing partner Hawk Ostby) he snagged himself a sweet gig writing Jon Favreau's Iron Man. Not too shabby for a guy who's only other screen credit is a obscure Armand Assante thriller known as Consequence.

Amusingly-named website JewReview.net had a brief sitdown with Mr. Fergus in preparation for the release of First Snow, but of course the topic of conversation managed to focus on Iron Man for a at least a few minutes. The screenwriter seems genuinely thrilled with the choice of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony "Iron Man" Stark, and he spends a lot of time assuring us that Stark will be based in a very "human" place -- despite the fact that the character is actually a billionaire playboy who becomes a superhero after creating an indestructible suit of armor. Expect to hear more from the team of Fergus and Ostby some time soon; they're presently working on the long-awaited adaptation of John Carter of Mars over at Disney.

[ via IESB.net ]