Spielberg Won't Be Hanging With HARVEY Anytime Soon...

Merrick here...
Steven Spileberg has withdrawn from Fox/Dreamwork's proposed remake of Henry Koster's 1950 film HARVEY - rather, a re-adaptation of its source material. The project was to shoot early next year. Sounds like several factors contributed to the Spielberg jumping ship, primarily shenanigans surrounding casting - i.e. finding someone with the willingness, or chops, to follow in Jimmy Stewart's footsteps (Stewart starred in the 1950 iteration).

Spielberg’s first choice was Tom Hanks, but the actor who is often regarded as a modern day Stewart wanted no part of taking over a role played by the iconic star. Spielberg and Fox spent several months courting Robert Downey Jr. While the star didn’t commit, he made suggestions on rewrites of the Jonathan Tropper script. He and Spielberg never found themselves in creative sync on the script, and the director finally called the whole thing off.

...reveals THIS write-up in Variety. At this time, HARVEY will continue development - which of course leaves the door open for many hellish possibilities to be visited upon this already unnecessary film. Just think about how the system works, and imagine how bad it could get. Here's a sequence from the awesome 1950 adaptation of Mary Chase's Pulitzer winning play of the same name. If you're not familiar with it, it's about a dude who says he has a six foot tall rabbit as a buddy...
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