Robert Zemeckis, who is currently filming Flight starring Denzel Washington, will no longer direct Legendary Pictures’ fantasy action adventure Here There Be Monsters.
Producer Todd Lieberman told SFX they are “talking about potential directors. Robert is not officially involved any more.”
The film, written by Brian Helgeland, is “an original idea that came from Thomas Tull, who runs Legendary Pictures. It’s basically a retelling of the John Paul Jones story but inserting a sea monster into the mix,” Lieberman added. “It could be a great, historical, epic, fun, sea monster movie something I’ve never done before.”
Lieberman said that his dream casting for Jones would be Christian Bale, who he has worked with on The Fighter.
Another project The Muppets producer is currently filming in Montreal is Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies, for which a first look image was released a week ago. The film stars Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer.
“The reason I wanted to get involved with the movie is because it’s a challenging tone in that it’s a zombie movie that takes place through the eyes of a zombie. It’s also in a way a little bit self referential to the zombie genre, so there’s a slight humorous tone to it,” he said.
“But at its center it’s a love story and it takes itself seriously and there’s action and there’s horror and comedy, so really all of these different disparate tones. Hopefully we can balance those and make something that’s truly unique.”
You can read more of his quotes about the film here.