It seems to be the day for people dropping projects, as hot on the heels of the announcemt that Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire have left Spider-man 4, comes news that Robert Downey Jr. has decided against appearing in the upcoming Jon Favreau comic book movie, Cowboys & Aliens.
Downey has been attached to the film for a long time and it was him who was instrumental in getting Iron Man director Favreau involved, but according to the LA Times, he's got too many movies on the cards, and he decided one of the had to go. It is perhaps unsuprising that the one he junked was Cowboys, as with a successful comic book franchise already under his belt, and also Sherlock Holmes shaping up into a film series, he may have decided that concentrating on those was better than trying to set up a third major franchise for him to star in.
Cowboys & Aliens itself is based on a serialised graphic movel about wild west cowboys and indians, who have to stop fighting each other and team up against a common foe - aliens who want to enslave the local population. Downey Jr. would have played Zeke Jackson, who leads the revolt.
Dreamworks apparently wants to shoot the movie this year, and while Downey was already going to be busy promoting Iron Man 2 and Due Date, there's also speculation that the reason he dropped the film is because a Sherlock Holmes sequel is on the fast track, and so he's decided to make that instead.
Now Jon Favreau will have to go and find a new Zeke, and if he can do that in time, we should still be getting the movie in summer 2011.