Academy Award-winner Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, The Polar Express) will replace Guillermo del Toro as director of the latest film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches for Warner Bros.
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The Witches focuses on a young boy who must stop a coven of witches from killing young kids. However, his quest results in the young boy being turned into a mouse, which leads him to enlist the aid of his grandmother to stop the coven. The Witches already got the feature film treatment back in 1990 via a movie starring Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch and Jasen Fisher as Luke, the hero of the story.
Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, The Shape of Water) was long attached to direct the project, but will now produce alongside longtime collaborator Alfonso Cuaron (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Zemeckis will also be acting as a writer on the movie along with his ImageMovers partner Jack Rapke, with the duo also acting as producers.
Dahl’s stories are in high demand lately, with Donald Glover and Ryan Gosling being linked to another reboot of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for the same studio.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)