Deadline is hearing whispers that director Robert Zemeckis is in “early talks” with co-writer Bob Gale and composer Alan Silvestri to adapt their 1985 film Back to the Future for the stage. No further details have been revealed, but it’s surprisingly easy to imagine the classic time travel film as a musical. With some solid production design and a great cast, this could be something special. My only fear is that it becomes a phenomenon, and that studios take it as a sign that it’s time to capitalize on the franchise’s new-found popularity by going ahead with the long-rumored remake. (Shudder.)

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After more than a decade directing performance capture movies such as The Polar Express and Beowulf, Robert Zemeckis will return to live-action with Flight for Universal.

Denzel Washington is leading the film, which…

“…tells the redemption story of “Whip” (Washington), a commercial airline pilot who pulls off a heroic feat of flying in a damaged plane, saving 98 lives on a flight carrying 106 people. While the world begs to embrace him as a true American Hero, the everyman struggles with this label as he is forced to hold up to the scrutiny of an investigation that brings into question his behavior the night before the doomed flight.”

The film is set to shoot next month in Atlanta, so more names will be added to the cast soon. John Gatins (Real Steel) wrote the script, and a release date will probably be set for sometime in late 2012

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Last month Spider-Man director Sam Raimi signed up to direct Oz, the Great and Powerful which follows a circus wrangler who is transported by a tornado to the mysterious world of Oz. Once there he gets mistaken for a know-it-all, and eventually becomes the Wizard of Oz.

Now it seems the project has competition, as according to Deadline Warner Bros. is in early talks with Robert Zemeckis (Beowulf) to direct a live-action remake of the The Wizard of Oz. The word ‘remake’ is used quite literally in this instance, as they are apparently planning to use the original script from the 1939 classic.

Is this laziness? Or is it just a tactic so that it can get into production before Sam Raimi’s version? Warner Bros. owns the original script so they can do what they like with it, and they will no doubt change bits of it here and there before shooting, but quite frankly we don’t really need a remake. There is nothing wrong with the original.

The project is in the early stages so things may change if Robert Zemeckis comes on-board, but Warner Bros. may take a few hits for touching a beloved classic such as The Wizard of Oz. At least Disney and Sam Raimi are opting for a different take on the material.

What do you think? Would you be happy with a modern remake or should 60 year old classics be left alone?

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A Deadline exclusive reveals that Robert Zemeckis, who hasn’t directed a live-action film since Cast Away in 2000, may be plotting a return to the format with time travel picture Timeless. Hit the break for the full story.

Although there’s not much more information at the moment. We don’t know anything about Timeless except that it’ll involve time travel. The movie will be apparently be penned by screenwriter Mike Thompson, who has written a few upcoming movies, and…not much else. 2009′s Love Happens, starring Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart, was scripted by him, but apart from that and some episodes of TV series John Doe, he hasn’t done a lot until recently. There’s not much to gauge him by yet, so let’s just hope he knows what he’s doing. Deadline has more details on the business side of things.

Since Cast Away, Zemeckis has helmed The Polar Express, Beowulf, A Christmas Carol, and the Yellow Submarine remake, to be released in 2012 – all projects utilising CGI mo-cap techniques. While I love The Polar Express (for all its uncanny valleys), Beowulf didn’t blow me away, and it seemed possible that Zemeckis had lost some of the magic that encapsulated his films prior to this slew of animated movies.

Also rumoured to be one of the group of directors circling the upcoming Superman reboot, I heartily welcome the man’s return to live-action. Cast Away, Forrest Gump and the Back to the Future trilogy are all fantastic, and Contact is one of my all-time favourite sci-fi movies. Can Zemeckis recapture some of that old charm?

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Robert Zemeckis is about to jump out of the starting gate with his newest attempt to convince us all that performance capture is a technology that can open up new options in filmmaking and support an entire film on its own.

I’m writing, of course, about Disney’s A Christmas Carol (AKA The Jim Carrey Christmas Carol, since the actor plays Scrooge and the three ghosts), opening this Friday in “glorious” 3D. Zemeckis has been the non-James-Cameron proponent for motion capture technology with fare like The Polar Express and Beowulf slowly pushing us up the opposite side of the uncanny valley.

The question that comes and goes with each Zemeckis release remains the same: when is the director of Cast Away, Forest Gump and the Back To The Future Trilogy going to get back in the director’s chair of a live action movie.

The answer, it seems, is a mixed bag, but an AWESOME mixed bag, because the next Zemeckis project might just be the sequel to the Oscar-winning Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

From MTV:

MTV News has now exclusively learned that Zemeckis is not only pumped to bring the flustered cartoon bunny back to the big screen after 20 years, but that he has commissioned a script. And guess who’s writing it? Original scribes Jeffrey Price and Peter Seaman.

“There’s a script that’s being developed,” he revealed, adding, “We’ve got the original writers that are working on it now — Seaman and Price.”

In 1988, cell animation laid over live action was the motion capture of the day. In a very real way, it started Zemeckis’ obsession with the cutting edge of visual effects.

Robert has already teased Roger Rabbit 2 on several occasions, even if this is the first news we’re getting of a script. Zemeckis has previously said that there would be some motion capture 3D effects in the second Roger, but the 2D characters from the first film would remain 2D.

What’s more, he’s said he’s talking to Bob Hoskins.

Puh-puh-puh-puh-pleeeeze. Let’s get this movie goin.

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It was a dismal weekend for nation-wide releases this week in the US. Walt Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer ended up winning the weekend with their talking-guinea pig action film G-Force, which I sadly took time out of my weekend to see.

The future of 3D for blockbuster entertainment hangs in the balance, with theater owners being pressured into Digital 3D theater conversion in these economically trying times. Right now, Real D and the Regal Cinemas chain have the biggest commitment to furthering 3D projection with Regal pledging an additional 1,500 screens in May bringing the total Real D screens to 3,500 by the beginning of the fall.

Monsters and Aliens this year was the first film to add a 3D surcharge across the board, something that has acted as the carrot to Avatar’s ever-present whip. James Cameron and Robert Zemeckis have been the two filmmakers leading the charge on the 3D motion capture front, both pushing harder for 3D ready screens as their fourth-quarter blockbuster releases A Christmas Carol and Avatar loom on the horizon. If Avatar ends up being the must-see film of December, theaters don’t want to be left out in the cold when they could use that movie to recoup the costs of digital 3D theater conversion.

As for A Christmas Carol, it’s 3D family fare, and G-Force took this weekend to prove that if you have enough kid-friendly jokes and lots of stuff popping out of the screen at kids, the film can make money.

While watching G-Force and actually finding myself bored by the movie mid-way through, I started having very vivid Bolt flashbacks. Bolt, also released by Disney in Digital 3D, starred John Travolta and Miley Cyrus in a film about a television-star dog who was unaware he didn’t posses the super powers his on-screen character did. The movie was cute, I guess, but I can’t imagine I would have seen it if it hadn’t been one of the few 3D releases at the tail end of last year. 3D as a gimmick for kiddie films seems to get my butt in the seats despite negative buzz and an uninteresting plot.

As G-Force became less about action sequences and more about being “special” and part of a family, I started to turn my attention to the use of 3D in this particular film, since I could see little other reason why it was made. What I noticed was a 3D convention that I hadn’t seen before and I think it made me mad.

When the theater I was in started it’s pre-recorded “put on your glasses now for the amazing 3D experience” announcement, the screen widened to something damn close to a 4:3 aspect ratio. I thought I was just going to see a Disney movie that was all-ready to get pan-and-scanned for home video release, but when the film started, it was presented in a more-cinematic 16:9 aspect ratio. But here’s the tricky thing: The black letterbox bars that altered the aspect ratio were part of the film’s print. When something was supposed to be a especially spectacular 3D effect, the object would bleed over into the letterboxing bars as well as go more 3D for the glasses-wearing audience.

As soon as I noticed that the black bars actually had the slightest degree of negative depth (making the entire 16:9 part of the film look slightly more dimensional), I couldn’t stop noticing that a cog, spark or atmospheric effect would bleed over into the letterbox (I’ve attempted to demonstrate using the banner image on this post).

It was really annoying, but a convention I hadn’t seen in the 3D films of the past few years. I’m not even sure what to call it, as it was meant to simulate the characters and elements actually entering the audience.

One of my gripes with trailers for 3D movies is that shot where they show a CGI’d character from the film (or flames, or an axe) actually flying over the heads of an audience. I know it’s supposed to FEEL like things are actually flying out over the first few rows, but showing us this effect as if holograms were going to spring up in the crappy seats is a little disingenuous. However, when the 3D effects look to bleed off the screen into the actual theater, as is the desired effect with black, recessed letterbox cropping on the actual print, the illusion is maintained until you notice what’s going on.

And once I focused on that, G-Force’s plot was even more obviously bland to me.

But the surprising lasting-power shown by Ice Age 3D ($673.5 million worldwide after 26 days) and the surprise drop in Harry Potter numbers letting G-Force take the #1 spot for the weekend (with $32,185,000 in 3 days) goes to show that opening family-friendly 3D fare in the middle of an adult-male oriented summer release schedule is a winning strategy.

So, no matter how mediocre G-Force was (and I was forgetting it as the credits rolled), we’re going to see more of its gimmicky 3D ilk.

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Comingsoon.net received a new image from Robert Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol which you can see above. Below we also have our first look at moving footage from the film. It lasts 19 seconds and I find the last 2 seconds hilarious. Watch below!

Jim Carrey plays a number of characters, including Ebenezer Scrooge, alongside Gary Oldman, Robin Wright Penn, Colin Firth, Cary Elwes, and Bob Hoskins.

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…nose in Robert Zemeckis‘ A Christmas Carol, as the image below shows. This is our first look at Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and it comes from Filmz.ru.

Robert Zemeckis directed Beowulf and The Polar Express so it’s no surprise that the film was shot entirely in performance capture. As well as Scrooge, Carrey will be playing the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.

A Christmas Carol will be released in November 2009.

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