Paramount to remake Hitchcock's 'Vertigo,' Robert Downey Jr. eyes lead role

Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights to a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 classic psychological thriller "Vertigo," in which, Robert Downey Jr. is eyeing the lead role.

The actor is producing the project with his wife Susan Downey through their Team Downey production company, along with John Davis and John Fox via Davis Entertainment. "Peaky Blinders" creator Steven Knight is set to write the script, reported Variety, a US-based media company.

Downey has kept a low profile as an actor since the release of 2019's "Avengers: Endgame," which is one of the highest-grossing movies ever made, and 2020's "Dolittle," which is not. He produced and appeared in the documentary "Sr.," about his father, and he's next set to appear this July in Christopher Nolan's historical epic "Oppenheimer" opposite Cillian Murphy.

The original "Vertigo" starred James Stewart as John "Scottie" Ferguson, a San Francisco police detective who retires due to a paralyzing fear of heights brought on by a severe case of vertigo. After he's hired to tail an acquaintance's wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), Scottie becomes obsessed with her, but his fears render him powerless to save her when she climbs the tower of a Spanish Mission and plunges to her death.

"Vertigo" was not a smashing success when it was first released in theatres, and it divided critics. But by the 1980s, it started to gain recognition as a masterpiece. In 1982, in a survey of the best movies ever made by the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound publication (conducted every 10 years), "Vertigo" cracked the top 10, and continued to climb the list, reaching the number one slot in the 2012 survey, reported Variety.

Filmmakers as varied as Brian De Palma (with "Obsession" and "Body Double"), David Lynch (with "Mulholland Drive") and Mel Brooks (with "High Anxiety") have drawn heavy inspiration from "Vertigo" in particular. But no American studio has attempted an outright remake until now.