Robert Zemeckis Returning to Live-Action With Denzel Washington in “Flight”

For more than a decade, Robert Zemeckis made some of the most reliably crowd-pleasing films in Hollywood, some were better than others, but the guy was bankable and at times genuinely entertaining. Then he discovered motion-capture animation.

Now he's returning to Earth with "Flight," starring Denzel Washington in a role vaguely similar to the one he played in "Unstoppable," reported 24 Frames. Washington will play a pilot who is at first hailed as a hero for saving his passengers from peril, until it's learned that it was his substance abuse put everyone in danger to begin with. Jerk.

Zemeckis started in 2004 to put all his energies into the then-new mo-cap technology, first with "The Polar Express." He followed suit with "Beowulf" and then "A Christmas Carol," both of which had domestic box-office receipts far short of recouping their budgets and just looked creepy.

Then came this year's "Mars Needs Moms," a film of such epic flop-itude--it made $21 million domestically, cost $150 million--that Disney changed their minds about bankrolling Zemeckis' "Yellow Submarine" remake, and thank god for that.

Zemeckis has made so many iconic films--"Romancing the Stone," "Back to the Future," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," " Forrest Gump"--it's hard to believe he fell so far. Don't know if he's got a comeback in him, but we sure hope so.

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