Two directors with spotty track records have landed new projects that will hopefully turn things around, although one sounds considerably more promising than the other.
Joseph Kosinski has yet to really hit it big with his two major sci-fi projects Tron: Legacy and Oblivion, but he remains a sought-after director with a number of options to choose from for his next gig. Disney has yet to decide if it's worth it to do another Tron film, and Kosinski has been attached to a remake of The Black Hole and an update on The Twilight Zone. Now he's been set to direct a mystery "grounded action thriller" written by Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers (AMC's upcoming Hell & Catch Fire), and conceived by Kosinski himself. That's pretty much all we know, but there must be a reason it's being kept under such a veil of secrecy. Keep an eye on this one.
On the other hand, animation legend Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) has been struggling to get anything completed since Coraline in 2009. His four-picture deal with Disney fell through in disastrous fashion, leaving his promising feature The Shadow King unfinished and unsold. Even his adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book ended with him being booted and the project sitting on the shelf. Now he's been hired by FilmNation to direct a live-action version of Adam Gidwitz's A Tale Dark & Grimm, a reinterpretation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.The story "follows two unsuspecting children who run away from their own dark fairy tale in search of a better life only to find themselves amidst eight other tales just as fearsome." It's certainly perfect for his dark and gothic sensibilities, but the fact that it's live-action is troubling. Selick has never been very good when dealing with real people, as anyone who suffered through Monkeybone can verify. Considering the difficulties he's faced recently there's a pretty good chance the film will never see the light of day anyway. We shall see.
