Robert Downey Jr. and Warner Bros. are planning to relaunch Perry Mason, with Downey Jr. starring as the titular district attorney. (If Mason were to become a franchise, it would be Downey Jr.’s third, alongside Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes.) Mason was originally a novel by Erle Stanley Gardner — before it became a radio show, then a TV series, then dozens of films starring the leads from that series, and eventually another failed TV series. Its most famous incarnation is that first series, which ran from 1957 to 1966 and starred Raymond Burr and this theme music. The new film will, like the book, be set in thirties L.A. It should be a change to have a Perry Mason whose default cross-examination style is highly ironic and sarcastic (we can’t suppress the Ally McBeal flashbacks), but maybe not a bad one? [Variety]
