Robert Downey Jr. explains why THE SHAGGY DOG and DOLITTLE are his most ‘significant’ films of the past 25 years

When you think about it Robert Downey Jr.career, you might think of his two Oscar-nominated performances in completely different films, Chaplin AND tropical thunder. More likely, you probably think of his sprawling stint as Tony Stark aka Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that he helped build, which led him from Iron man in 2008 a Avengers: Finale in 2019. There are also a ton of other arty dramas and comedies from the past few decades that I could rattle off that featured nuanced and entertaining takes on the actor, but when asked what his most notable films have been over the past 25 years, RDJ gives a shocking answer.

In a recent interview with The New York Times Magazine (via Variety), Downey mentioned 2006 The shaggy dog and the infamous 2020 Dolittle flop like its major titles.

“I ended my contract with Marvel and then rushed into what had all the promise of being another potential big, fun, well-crafted franchise in ‘Dolittle.’ I had reservations. My team and I seemed a little too enthusiastic about the deal and not enthusiastic enough about the merits of the execution. But by then I was bulletproof. I was the guru of all genre films. Honestly, the two biggest movies I’ve done in the last 25 years are “The Shaggy Dog,” because it was the movie that made Disney say they were going to assure me. Then the second most important film was ‘Dolittle’, because ‘Dolittle’ was a wound of two and a half years of wasted opportunities.

The shaggy dog stars Tim Allen as a district attorney who transforms into a Bearded Collie after being bitten by a sacred dog. Downey Jr. plays the evil doctor behind the transformation. The film is hardly memorable, but for Downey Jr. it marked the moment a major studio like Disney would hire him after his career was still on its last legs following an April 1996 arrest for heroin possession. cocaine and an unloaded gun. He was The shaggy dog and not Iron man which first brought Downey Jr. back into the Hollywood studio fold.

As for Dolittle, the $175 million family tentpole bombed at the box office in January 2020 and garnered some of the worst reviews of Downey Jr’s career. He produced the film with his wife, Susan Downey, under the banner of Team Downey Productions. Despite being a critical and commercial failure, the actor still sees it as an important film to change his priorities.

“The stress it put on my lady as she rolled up her sleeves to her armpits to make it usable enough to bring to market was shocking. After that point, what is that sentence? Never let a good crisis go to waste? – we reset priorities and made some changes to who our closest business advisers were.

In the middle of the Dolittle flop, Downey Jr. decided to document his father, indie filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., as he was dying. That project has become Mr., an acclaimed documentary released on Netflix last year. Downey Jr. sued Mr. as “a piece of content”. While it was personal to him, “to everyone else it was content they might have chosen to click and watch or not.”

“It’s a way for me to let myself know that just because this might be the most important thing I’ve ever committed to a data card on a camera, doesn’t mean it isn’t [expletive] content to everyone else,” Downey Jr. said about using the “content” descriptor.

Downey Jr. will soon appear in Christopher Nolan’S Oppenheimer, in theaters this month on July 21. He also stars in the Max series The sympathizerhe soon made his way towards us.