While Robert Downey Jr. may not ever lead his own standalone Iron Man film again, it appears that he plans to stretch his acting chops quite a bit in the near future by possibly starring opposite…himself.  Downey has been developing a new take on Pinocchio for some time now, and though he was initially working with Tim Burton on the pic, we recently learned that Downey had lined up his Tropic Thunder director Ben Stiller to take the helm instead.  The assumption has been that RDJ would be playing the role of Geppetto, but a new report suggests that Downey might also be playing the role of Pinocchio.  Hit the jump for more.

The folks over at Bleeding Cool are hearing that the current plan for Pinocchio is for Robert Downey Jr. to play the roles of both Geppetto and Pinocchio.  It’s still very early days on the project and the script is developing, but it’s not hard to imagine RDJ taking this idea and running with it.  It’s unclear if Downey would simply be taking on a voice role for Pinocchio or if he’d play the character via motion-capture, but the idea is for this Geppetto to be a younger gentlemen, so Downey could conceivably inhabit both roles.

We still don’t know if Stiller has firmed up his deal to direct, but Warner Bros. definitely appears to be high on this Pinocchio redo. Stiller’s most recent directorial effort—this December’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty—is gaining some very positive advanced buzz, so the picture for Pinocchio should be clearer once Walter Mitty opens over the Christmas holiday.