Denzel Washington has found his next project. The star of Unstoppable has signed on to star in director Robert Zemeckis‘s next movie, Flight. The Playlist reports that it will be the first live action feature for Robert Zemeckis since Castaway in 2000. Zemeckis has spent the last decade attempting to perfect motion capture animation with films such films as Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol.
Robert Zemeckis decided to take Flight after Disney cancelled production of his motion capture adaptation of the Beatles’s classic Yellow Submarine. The move back to live action movies will also mean a delay in the long gestating sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit as well as delay on another rumored Zemeckis production, the sci-fi movie Replay.
Flight will star Denzel Washington as a pilot who rescues a plane full of passengers after a malfunction. This is not however, the Sully Sullenberger story. The ensuing investigation of the flight reveals that Washington’s pilot was drunk and on drugs and he must deal with his conscience while the airline and the pilots union works to cover up what happened.
Denzel Washington will next be seeen on the big screen in the thrillerSafe House. He’ll play a criminal in hiding at a not so secret C.I.A location. Ryan Reynolds will play the agent in charge of protecting Washington. Vera Farmiga, Robert Patrick and Joel Kinnamon co-star. Safe House will hit theaters in February of 2012.
Flight goes into production this fall with hopes of soaring into theaters by Christmas 2012.