Robert Zemeckis finally picks his next film!

24 Frames has the story on which film he's chosen:

It's been more than a decade since Robert Zemeckis has made a live-action film. But fans who've been hoping for the director to move away from his recent performance-capture period could soon get their wish.

According to a source familiar with the project, Zemeckis' next movie will be the live-action airplane drama "Flight," about a pilot who rescues his passengers from a dangerous situation but who turns out not to be as heroic as he appears -- he's an addict whose negligence was partly responsible for the danger in the first place.

News initially surfaced about "Flight" about six weeks ago. But the project's fate had been thrown into uncertainly as both studio Paramount and the director decided if they wanted to move forward with it.

Now, however, the drama is on track and aims to shoot in the fall, said the source, who asked not to be identified because the project was still being developed. The movie has Denzel Washington attached as the pilot, but a deal and scheduling issues must still be worked out. [Update Saturday, 12:32 pm: A second source says that the movie will indeed shoot in the fall and that Washington's deal will close shortly.]

A Paramount spokeswoman and the film's producer each declined to comment.

The project looks to take precedence over several other Zemeckis films, including a time-travel movie called "Replay" and a "Roger Rabbit"-esque hybrid called "The Animated American." Both pictures would take Zemeckis back to the future, one more literally than the other.

Zemeckis' filmmaking prospects have been the subject of much speculation in movie circles, and it's understandable why. After a string of generation-defining hits early in his career -- "Back to the Future," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Forrest Gump" -- he's been a lot less influential of late as he's moved toward performance-capture pictures and away from live-action films.

The filmmaker produced the hybrid live-animated "Mars Needs Moms," which bombed earlier this year. His last directing effort was the middlingly received "A Christmas Carol" in 2009, which followed the similarly underperforming "Beowulf" in 2007. Disney spiked his update of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" several months ago after "Mars" tanked. All of his recent projects fit with his well-documented preoccupation with technology and special effects.

"Flight" fits with a different Zemeckis preoccupation: The filmmaker is a registered pilot.

The director hasn't done a purely live-action film since the Tom Hanks desert-island tale "Cast Away." That movie, which grossed a whopping $424 million around the world, capped a period in which he also helmed well-received movies with adventure and science-fiction elements, including "Romancing the Stone" and "Contact." Now he's heading back in that direction.

-Joey's Two Cents: I'd have preferred to have seen him to Replay, but this could be a cool project as well...thoughts?

Robert Zemeckis is going back to live action for his next flick...

...according to Vulture:

The director of Back to the Future is headed back to the future again ... sort of. Our spies tell us that Robert Zemeckis — who directed all three movies in the franchise that made Michael J. Fox a star — is now in serious talks with Warner Bros. Pictures to direct Replay, a project based on the bestselling 1987 novel by Ken Grimwood, about a man who moves around in time, granted without the help of a DeLorean.

In Replay, a 40-something radio journalist dies of a heart attack in 1988, but re-awakens back in 1963, in his 18-year-old body, with the memories and accrued wisdom of the previous 25 years intact. He always dies in 1988, and then goes back to the late sixties, but each time he has the ability to make a new sets of choices, resulting in different spouses, progeny, and jobs in each “life.”

Unlike Back to the Future, Replay isn’t an action-comedy; it’s a thriller in which the main character slowly learns he can’t prevent his own death, but sets about trying to prevent the death of his daughter.

The project is also a case of art imitating life imitating art: Steven Spielberg executive produced Zemeckis’ Back to the Future movies, and during one “replay" in Replay the character notices a movie that’s been directed by ... Steven Spielberg. (The fictional Spielberg movie in Replay ends up leading the protagonist to his soul mate, a fellow time-jumper, and the movie's screenwriter.)

The script for Replay has itself been stuck in a bit of a Groundhog Day time loop. It comes from screenwriter and TV producer Jason Smilovic (he wrote both the feature film Lucky Number Slevin and executive produced NBC's failed 2008 Christian Slater spy series, My Own Worst Enemy), but has actually been rattling around Hollywood almost from the moment it was published. Grimwood, who died in 2000, first sold the rights to United Artists in the late eighties, then saw the project move to Disney, where it was most recently under consideration for Ben Affleck to direct. When Affleck elected to instead make the Iranian hostage crisis-based Argo, the project moved to Warner Bros., where we hear former Julia Roberts agent-turned-producer Ellen Goldsmith-Thomas is still aboard and gamely trying to get it made.

Deadline recently reported that Zemeckis would next be directing Flight at Paramount, a drama that has Denzel Washington attached to star. It’s unclear if or when Washington will commit to starring in the film, and in the meantime, we’re told that Zemeckis seems to be doing Replay first, and then circling back for Flight.

We’ll let you know if Spielberg plans on cameoing.

-Joey's Two Cents: I've been hoping to see this movie get made for a while now, so this is terrific news to me...thoughts?