Schmoes Know got the scoop earlier today and now it’s been confirmed by Variety that visual effects specialist Cedric Nicolas-Troyan will be taking over the directing duties on the spin-off prequel to the hit fairy tale adaptation Snow White and the Huntsman, once called The Huntsman, following the departure of Frank Darabont last week.
The movie would act as a prequel to that movie, showing how Chris Hemsworth’s title character and Charlize Theron’s evil queen Ravenna met before the events in Snow White and the Huntsman, while Emily Blunt has been in talks to join the movie even as it lost its director.
Nicolas-Troyan was the visual effects supervisor and second unit director on the original movie, directed by Rupert Sanders, and has also done visual effects on some of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. His name had been mentioned in conjunction with a number of other FX-heavy films including a remake of Highlander and the sequel to Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, but The Huntsman will now be his feature film directorial debut.
They will be working from the most recent draft of the screenplay by Darabont, who left due to creative differences after working on the screenplay previously drafted by Craig Mazin and Evan Spiliotopoulos.
Universal has already snagged a North American release date for The Huntsman (or whatever it ends up being called) on April 22, 2016.
