Robert Downey Jr. Resurrecting Unfinished Steve McQueen Project

This is one of those cool film stories that gets you to sit up and actually take notice! What could possibly bring Robert Downey Jr. and Steve McQueen together thirty years after McQueen’s death? Find out what all the fuss is about after the jump!

Apparently in the late 1960s, acting legend and all around bad ass Steve McQueen (The Great Escape, Bullitt) compiled 1700 pages of notes for Yucatan, a film about a deep sea diver searching for treasure in the Mayan ruins. McQueen never got the project off the ground, and in 2005 McQueen’s son Chad and godson Lance discovered the notebooks and offered the project to Warner Brothers. Nothing much has come from the project since, but Robert “Now When I Say Jump, Studios Ask How High” Downey Jr. has taken interest in the project as a starring vehicle, and the job of distilling the notes into a kick-ass adventure film has fallen into the lap of Anthony Peckham, who was the writer behind Downey’s Sherlock Holmes, as well as Invictus, so he’s got a strong pedigree with Warner’s already.

Sounds like McQueen wanted to do Indiana Jones decades before Spielberg and Lucas, but set it underwater. However, the technology and budgets available to filmmakers today could open up this project in ways McQueen never dreamed of. Downey’s been on a roll lately, and this seems like it could be the start of yet another potential franchise for him.

Any excitement for this project? Let us know, readers!