Long before he became a television icon embodied by actor Raymond Burr, legal eagle Perry Mason was defending clients in a series of 1930s B-films from First National. And if Robert Downey Jr has his way, he’ll back on the big screen soon. Last fall, the actor announced with his producer-wife Susan Downey, their plans for a big screen revival of Erle Stanley Gardner’s famed character. The first step towards that appears to be being taken right now as it is being reported that screenwriter Marc Guggenheim is currently in talks to write the film’s script.
Although Guggenheim’s script will be set back in the decade when the character first became popular, the 1930s, it won’t draw from any of Gardner’s original novels. Instead, the film’s basic story has already been outlined by Downey and David Gambino. In addition to his screenwriting experience, Guggenheim brings the background of his previous occupation as an attorney to the project, which should certainly add an amount of verisimilitude to the script. In addition to Green Lantern, Guggenheim has also worked on the television series The Practice and Law & Order as well as creating the legal-based series Eli Stone and the upcoming Fox series Guilty, with his Green Lantern writing partner Greg Berlanti. He is also co-writing and executive producing the pilot Arrow, the adaption of the DC comic book character Green Arrow, for the CW.
