Robert Downey Jr. Talks to the Animals in Debut Trailer for ‘Dolittle’

Now that his tenure as Iron Man is over, Robert Downey Jr. can move on from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and really dig into some projects he's been passionate about for years, like a new adaptation of Hugh Lofting's classic novel "The Story of Doctor Dolittle," simply titled Dolittle. In the age of cgi animals, it's not that much of a stretch for this story to come back to the forefront, but this hardly looks like a rousing adventure.

In fact, if the January 17 release date doesn't send a shiver up your spine, allow me to let you know that this movie has been shuffled all around the release calendar. It was initially announced for release on May 24, 2019 but got bumped up to April to avoid the summer movie rush. Then it wasn't ready in time to be released this past April, so it got bumped to January, one of only two graveyards to which movie studios can send their write-offs—mid-August through mid-September being the other.

This doesn't look like the worst movie ever made, but it certainly doesn't look very good either. No one outside of Downey probably wanted this movie to happen, and this trailer makes that patently obvious. I'm sure Downey will eventually make his way into a good non-Marvel movie again, but I doubt this will be it.

Dolittle opens on January 17, where it will be beaten at the box office by The Rise of Skywalker in its fifth weekend.