Trailer
Plot summary
Dr. John Dolittle, a veterinarian in Victorian England, can talk to animals. Since his wife Lily was lost at sea, he has kept to his manor and his menagerie, avoiding other people. A boy named Tommy Stubbins arrives at the sanctuary with an injured squirrel, Kevin, after Poly the parrot leads him there. Lady Rose, sent by Queen Victoria, summons Dolittle to Buckingham Palace, where the queen lies gravely ill. Dolittle finds she was poisoned with nightshade, and the only cure is the fruit of the Eden Tree on a far-off island. Rival physician Dr. Blair Müdfly is already at her bedside. Dolittle assembles his animals and sets out to bring the fruit back before an eclipse, leaving Tommy behind.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dolittle (2020)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film underwent three weeks of reshoots in the spring of 2019, directed by Jonathan Liebesman and written by Chris McKay, after initial test screenings yielded poor results.
- The Lego Batman Movie scribe John Whittington also performed rewrites on the script amid reshoots, and flew to London to meet with Downey, who allegedly tore Whittington's script apart in favor of "new ideas".
- Downey said that before signing on he was googling "weirdest Welsh doctor" and found William Price, a nutty Welsh neo-druidist who believed he could communicate with all nature; he sent Gaghan a picture of the wild looking man in a suit with stars on it, and Gaghan approved.
- Robert Downey Jr. later referred to the movie as "a two-and-a-half-year wound of squandered opportunity", and noted that its troubled production and failure led to a major rethinking of his career and life.
- Before the reshoots, Universal had turned towards Seth Rogen and Neighbors co-writer Brendan O'Brien to help add comedy to the film, but neither could remain committed to the project and both dropped out.
