Robert Downey Jr to star in `Inherent Vice`

Robert Downey Jr is in talks to play lead in `Inherent Vice`, an adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon mystery novel.

Los Angeles: Robert Downey Jr, who dropped out of `Gravity` is in talks to play lead in `Inherent Vice`, an adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon mystery novel.

Downey would play Larry `Doc` Sportello, a private detective based in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. A believer in the psychedelic free-love era, he gets involved in a case of his ex-girlfriend, her real estate billionaire boyfriend and a kidnapping. The movie is being directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who has been working on a screenplay adaptation since 2009, a national daily reported as saying. Downey last starred in Due Date and Iron Man 2 and recently wrapped filming on `Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows` for director Guy Ritchie and Warner Bros. The sequel will release in December. His `Iron Man 3` to film for Marvel and Disney in time for a summer 2013 release. PTI