Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr are pairing up for the true-life tale of a homeless violin virtuoso under the eye of Joe Wright, the British director of Pride and Prejudice and Atonement.
Foxx will portray Nathaniel Ayers, a musician who was unable to develop his talent after he began to suffer from schizophrenia. Newspaper columnist Steve Lopez (Downey Jr) discovers him as he lives rough on the streets of Los Angeles. After meeting Ayers, Lopez begins writing a regular column about him, with the two men developing a close relationship.
Entitled The Soloist, the film has been adapted from Lopez's columns and his forthcoming book on Ayers. The screenplay has been penned by Susannah Grant, who previously wrote Erin Brockovich and Disney's Pocahontas. Filming will begin in January in LA.
Foxx will next return to our screens in The Kingdom, a terrorism thriller set in Saudi Arabia, while Downey Jr recently completed the comic book adaptation Iron Man, in which he plays the title role. He is currently working on the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder, about the filming of a war movie in the tropics during which everything goes wrong. Wright's adaptation of the bestselling Ian McEwan novel Atonement is released next month.
