The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle

The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle is an upcoming American fantasy comedy film directed by Stephen Gaghan and written by Gaghan and Thomas Shepherd. It is based on the character Doctor Dolittle created by Hugh Lofting, primarily The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. Robert Downey Jr. stars as the title character, alongside Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen and Jim Broadbent in live action roles; the voice cast includes John Cena, Marion Cotillard, Carmen Ejogo, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Tom Holland, Rami Malek, Kumail Nanjiani, Craig Robinson, Octavia Spencer, Emma Thompson and Frances de la Tour.

The film will be released on January 17, 2020 by Universal Pictures, making it the first film based on Doctor Dolittle to not be distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Cast

 * Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. John Dolittle
 * Antonio Banderas as Rassouli
 * Michael Sheen as Mudfly
 * Jim Broadbent
 * Ralph Ineson as Arnall Stubbins
 * Harry Collett as Tommy Stubbins
 * Jessie Buckley

Production
On March 20, 2017, it was announced that Robert Downey Jr. would star in the feature adaptation of The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. In December 2017, Harry Collett and Jim Broadbent were cast. In February 2018, Antonio Banderas and Michael Sheen were cast in live action roles while Tom Holland, Emma Thompson, Ralph Fiennes, and Selena Gomez were cast to voice animals in the film. In March 2018, Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, John Cena, Rami Malek, Craig Robinson, Marion Cotillard, Frances de la Tour and Carmen Ejogo joined the voice cast.

Principal production commenced mid-February in 2018. Live action scenes began filming in Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria in May 2018, with further location filming at South Forest, Windsor Great Park and on the Menai Suspension Bridge in North West Wales, in June 2018.

In April 2019, it was reported the film had undergone 21 days of reshoots following poor test screenings. Director Jonathan Liebesman helped to oversee the filming alongside Gaghan while Chris McKay helped write new material, after it became clear from first cuts that the comedy and computer-generated elements of the film were not coming together as well as the producers had hoped.

Release
The film was originally going to be released on May 24, 2019 by Universal Pictures. But was moved from its original release date of May 24, 2019 to April 12, 2019 again to its current release date to avoid competition with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which was pushed back until December 20, 2019, before then being pushed back a year from April 12, 2019 to January 17, 2020.