“Ultimately I think it would have been too big a step to take,” director Joe Cornish said in 2011 about turning down what the chance to helm “A Good Day To Die Hard.” “Some directors do do it. That guy Rupert Wyatt made a very low budget movie called ‘The Escapist‘ and then he took on ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘ and did an amazing job. But he’s a braver man than me.” And while just over a month ago, Cornish emerged as Paramount‘s top choice to direct “Star Trek 3,” it looks like he won’t be going into the final frontier.
Among Variety‘s recent news that J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay were joining the tentpole to write alongside franchise mainstay Roberto Orci (though, no sign of Alex Kurtzman) was the little nugget that Cornish is “is no longer involved” with the movie. No reason is given for why the talks may have broken down between the studio and filmmaker, and everything is pressing ahead to try and meet a 2016 release date. But don’t think that Cornish and Paramount are done, professionally. The director is still attached to write and direct an adaptation of Neal Stephenson‘s famed sci-fi novel “Snow Crash” at the studio (though nothing has been heard about that one in a while).
As for Cornish’s next move? Your guess is as good as ours, but you’ll see his latest work in the forthcoming “Ant-Man,” which he co-wrote with Edgar Wright.