Paramount Pictures has acquired rights for a modern reboot or remake of the 1958 Hitchcock-helmed thriller Vertigo. Reports now suggest that Robert Downey Jr is likely to reprise the role played by James Stewart in the original film. 

The original version of Vertigo was made where Paramount was the studio. The preferred choice of the Hitchcock Estate to remake the film is as such Paramount Pictures. The original film was adapted from D’entre les morts (From Among the Dead), by Alec Coppel and Samuel A Taylor.

The protagonist in the 1958 Vertigo was a police detective who had to retire due to a work-related trauma that had left him with a crippling fear of heights and vertigo. After retiring, a friend asks him to follow the friend's wife since he is worried about her unpredictable behaviour. The dolly zoom, an in-camera tool that distorts perspective to cause disorientation and draw viewers into the cop's acrophobia condition, was used for the first time in Vertigo. 

Steven Knight will be penning the script for the Vertigo remake. He was recently in the news for signing to write a new Star Wars film for Disney and Lucasfilm. Robert Downey Jr, on the other hand, is known for his performance as Iron Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He is a two-time Academy Award-nominated actor for his work in Chaplin and Tropic Thunder.