After nine years since the theatrical release of Iron Man 3, Robert Downey Jr. and director Shane Black have finally found their next collaboration as they teamed up with Amazon Studios for the development of a number of movie and television adaptations, based on Donald E. Westlake’s popular Parker crime fiction novels.
According to Variety, the first project of their partnership will be the film titled Play Dirty, with Downey Jr. attached to portray the leading role of Parker, who is described as a professional thief with a brutal and mercenary work ethic. The character inspired the roles that were portrayed by Lee Marvin in 1967’s Point Blank, Jason Statham in 2013’s Parker, and Mel Gibson in 1999’s Payback.
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Play Dirty will be directed by Black from a screenplay he is co-writing with Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi. This marks as the third collaboration between Downey Jr. and Black, who first worked together on the filmmaker’s directorial debut Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 2005.
It’s still unclear which book from the Parker novel series the upcoming project will be based on. Parker first appeared in the 1962 novel The Hunter and has been the main character in 23 other novels written by Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark.
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Play Dirty will be produced by Downey Jr. and Susan Downey for Team Downey along with Joel Silver, Marc Toberoff, and Ezra Emanuel.
The Avengers: Endgame star will next be seen in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Oppenheimer biopic and in A24’s TV adaptation of The Sympathizer which will be directed by Park Chan-wook.
