Phillip Noyce Departs ‘Hunter Killer,’ Eyes Romance ‘Timeless’ & Thriller ‘Above Suspicion’ Instead

With a big-time release date of December 21st, 2012, “Hunter Killer” was meant to be a very sharp quiver in Relativity Media‘s bow during the next holiday season. Alas, director Phillip Noyce has bowed from the project, according to Moviehole. Adapted from the Don Keith and George Wallace novel “Firing Point,” the story centered on a renegade Russian admiral attempting a coup, and the American sub commander and Navy SEAL tasked with stopping him.

It seemed as if the project was very much in line with Noyce’s other films, particularly his most recent, “Salt,” and Noyce apparently thought so too, as the source claims Noyce felt it was ”too close to other films he had already made.” Instead, Noyce is climbing aboard “Timeless,” also at Relativity, and a project he was linked to in November. The story follows a man who loses his wife only to find her massive inheritance, and then using it to create a time machine to see her one last time. Take that, kids’ college fund!

The question is, does Relativity grab another director to jump aboard? “Hunter Killer” was currently slated to go against “World War Z” and (maybe?) “The Lone Ranger.” Or does “Timeless” take its place? Noyce is also reportedly developing “Above Suspicion,” a script he discovered in 2008 centered around an FBI agent who falls for an informant and then gets accused of murder to cover it up. Which seems weird to us, because “Phillip Noyce’s Above Suspicion” sounds like a movie right out of 2005 starring Michael Douglas and Rebecca DeMornay or something. The director also has a couple of other options as well, having recently signed on to direct a remake of “Bloodsport” for some reason and at the end of last year was looking over the animal conservation flick “Our Wild Life.” Which project will gain enough steam to move forward as Noyce’s next remains to be seen.