Robert Downey Jr. Has A Brand New Series On The Way
The movie star is heading to TV.
Robert Downey Jr. has never been much of a TV guy. Even back in the ’80s when his screen career was just starting — when most actors will welcome any exposure they can get — other than a role in the 1985 mini-series Mussolini: The Untold Story and a brief stint on Saturday Night Live, the only screen Downey seemed to have his eye on was the big one. But that’s about to change. The former Marvel star will be leading his own series soon, though before you get too excited — it won’t have anything to do with superheroes or Victorian era sleuths.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Robert Downey Jr.’s new unscripted series — Downey’s Dream Cars — will premiere on Discovery+. The show will reportedly combine Downey’s well-documented love of collecting and restoring classic cars with environmentalism. Along with a “team of experts,” Downey will restore cars while at the same time using new technology to render them “more eco-friendly.” While Downey’s Dream Cars doesn’t have a firm release date yet, THR says it’s expected to premiere on Discovery+ in late 2022.
Much like his Marvel Cinematic Universe counterpart, Robert Downey Jr. likes collecting cars. As reported by Hot Cars back in 2019, his collection boasts a number of Bentley Continentals, an Acura NSX Concept built specifically for 2013’s Iron Man 3, a 1965 Chevrolet Corvette, a whole bunch of Audis, and more. So at the very least, when Downey’s Dream Cars premieres, he’ll have more than a passing familiarity in what he’ll be talking about.
The Discovery+ series won’t be Downey’s first foray into combining passions with principles. In April we learned that Robert Downey Jr. will be authoring a book about eating well and helping the environment at the same time, titled Cool Food: Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bite at a Time. He’s also executive producing a Discovery+ docu-series about the relationship between humans and animals called The Bond.
Downey’s Dream Cars will mark the first time in over two decades that Robert Downey Jr. has made any kind of recurring or regular appearance on a TV series. In the early ’00s he played lawyer Larry Paul — a love interest to the titular lead of Fox’s hit dramedy Ally McBeal. Though we already know it won’t be his last time on the small screen. Last July, Deadline reported that Downey would star in the upcoming HBO mini-series The Sympathizer, based on the 2015 novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen. According to a report from Murphy’s Multiverse back in January, The Sympathizer will begin production next month, while targeting a release date of 2023.
Robert Downey Jr.’s name was one of the first announced as part of the cast of the upcoming historical epic Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan. Downey will play Lewis Strauss, the politician known best for being the driving force behind having J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance revoked. He’ll be a part of a star-studded cast including Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek, Jack Quaid, David Dastmalchian, and many more.
