Robert Zemeckis drops out of directing the time-travel drama Replay...

...which I honestly was really hoping he'd do. Here's the article from /Film:

With the amount rumor running around Hollywood, it’s hard to believe a movie is actually getting made until a filmmaker calls “Action” on set. That said, it seems after considering a number of projects, Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis has settled on his next film and it’ll be one of the many he was previously attached to. That film is called Flight and stars Denzel Washington as a pilot who saves his plane after a malfunction and is labeled a hero (Think Sully Sullenberger). However, as the investigation moves on, it becomes apparently that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and he must then deal with keeping the secret and the guilt of being an undeserving hero.

As a result of choosing to direct Flight next, Zemeckis has dropped out of the Groundhog Day/Back to the Future influenced Replay.

Deadline broke all this Zemeckis news. Their article says the producers of Replay, which once had Ben Affleck attached, are trying sell the Jason Smilovic scripted project to another filmmaker. It shouldn’t be a problem with a premise that’s as great as this. I can’t be the only one bummed that Zemeckis is NOT doing this film:

Robert Zemeckis finally picks his next film!

24 Frames has the story on which film he's chosen:

It's been more than a decade since Robert Zemeckis has made a live-action film. But fans who've been hoping for the director to move away from his recent performance-capture period could soon get their wish.

According to a source familiar with the project, Zemeckis' next movie will be the live-action airplane drama "Flight," about a pilot who rescues his passengers from a dangerous situation but who turns out not to be as heroic as he appears -- he's an addict whose negligence was partly responsible for the danger in the first place.

Robert Zemeckis is going back to live action for his next flick...

...according to Vulture:

The director of Back to the Future is headed back to the future again ... sort of. Our spies tell us that Robert Zemeckis — who directed all three movies in the franchise that made Michael J. Fox a star — is now in serious talks with Warner Bros. Pictures to direct Replay, a project based on the bestselling 1987 novel by Ken Grimwood, about a man who moves around in time, granted without the help of a DeLorean.

In Replay, a 40-something radio journalist dies of a heart attack in 1988, but re-awakens back in 1963, in his 18-year-old body, with the memories and accrued wisdom of the previous 25 years intact. He always dies in 1988, and then goes back to the late sixties, but each time he has the ability to make a new sets of choices, resulting in different spouses, progeny, and jobs in each “life.”

Unlike Back to the Future, Replay isn’t an action-comedy; it’s a thriller in which the main character slowly learns he can’t prevent his own death, but sets about trying to prevent the death of his daughter.