Pirates of the Caribbean and The Ring director Gore Verbinski is in talks to direct a new film starring Sam Rockwell and hailing from Love & Monsters writer Matthew Robinson. The film will be Verbinski’s first directorial feature since 2016’s A Cure For Wellness, which was the filmmaker’s third consecutive critical and financial disappointment following Rango and The Lone Ranger. Of course, if you remember, he did have at at least two projects in development over the last five years or so: he was once attached to Gambit, but dropped out of the project in 2019, not long before the whole thing collapsed when Disney bought 20th Century Fox.
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Next up, he was set to direct an animated feature called Cattywumpus for Netflix. Since that sentence said “animated” and “Netflix,” it seems safe to assume it’s gone, but according to Discussing Film, it’s likely that either this, or another animated project teased in 2021, will be the movie Rockwell is set to star in.
“I’m working on two screenplays….They’re both animated movies,” Verbinski told Collider in 2021. “They’re not Westerns. One is a musical. These are so many years out. They take so long that I just … I mean, it’s way too early to talk about them.”
Verbinski is not alone in having a number of recent projects fall apart. According to the Discussing Film report, writer Robinson was attached to Dora and Patty Jenkins’ Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Greg Berlanti’s adaption of Little Shop of Horrors, and a sequel to Edge of Tomorrow.
If it happens, this will be Rockwell’s first film with Verbinski, whose career is largely defined by the Pirates franchise, but who also directed stand-alone movies like Mousehunt, The Weather Man, and The Mexican. His only prior animated movie was Rango, but while that movie wasn’t a huge commercial hit, it did draw a ton of praise for its animation quality. it is also not assured (but seems likely) that the Rockwell/Verbinski collaboration will be animated.
While no distributor is currently attached to the project, 3 Arts Entertainment (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) is serving as the production company for Gore Verbinski’s next feature.
