Moviemaking hasn’t been kind to Robert Zemeckis these past few years. While Zemeckis has seen several small-screen successes as the executive producer of shows like “Manifest” and Netflix‘s “Medal of Honor” miniseries, Zemeckis’s big-screen efforts have been, well, mixed. “Welcome to Marwen” was a critical and commercial flop, grossing only $13 million worldwide against a reported budget of $39 million and earning an unimpressive 35% on Rotten Tomatoes. “Allied,” Zemeckis’s expensive World War II thriller with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, ended up an award season also-ran and failed to break even at the domestic box office.
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So while Zemeckis may be a 67-year-old filmmaker with fuck-you money, he probably wouldn’t say no to a surefire hit these days. Time will tell if his remake of “The Witches” will get the job done, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, he may have a more conventional blockbuster in the offering. Warner Bros. has tapped Zemeckis to direct “Ares,” a new science-fiction feature from up-and-coming screenwriter Geneva Robertson-Dworet. Robertson-Dworet previously worked on both the “Tomb Raider” and “Captain Marvel” screenplays and currently has a variety of projects in various stages of production, many of them key studio properties connected to the Marvel and Hasbro cinematic universes.
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As the Hollywood Reporter article notes, “Ares” tells the story of an astronaut who crash-lands in the African desert and who holds a secret that could change the world forever. In case you were wondering if “Ares” might be a small, psychological character study, the film will be executive produced by Roland Emmerich, who tends to lend his talents to, ah, let’s say a louder mode of studio pictures. If the film lives up to its high-octane pedigree, This could return Zemeckis to his pre-motion capture roots as a reliable blockbuster director. If nothing else, it would probably put him back on the shortlist of directors to call when Disney has to fire another ‘Star Wars‘ director.
