A new rumor claims that director Guy Ritchie, known for his work on Sherlock Holmes, Snatch, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, has reportedly exited The Walt Disney Company’s live-action adaptation of Hercules.
Tate Donovan as Hercules in Hercules (1997), Walt Disney Pictures
This new rumor comes from scooper DanielRPK via his Patreon account. The Hollywood Handle reported, “Guy Ritchie is reportedly no longer attached to direct the ‘HERCULES’ live-action remake.”
Guy Ritchie is reportedly no longer attached to direct the ‘HERCULES’ live-action remake.
(Via: @DanielRPK) pic.twitter.com/JHUjEcLfJz
— The Hollywood Handle (@HollywoodHandle) January 17, 2024
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This rumor comes in the wake of The DisInsider Show reporting back in December that “Hercules is looking for a new director. Guy Ritchie is not expected to direct. So when they got Dave Callaham, who wrote Shang-Chi and Wonder Woman 1984… They got a new writer to re-write the script… but the idea is that Guy Ritchie’s schedule is too busy. He has a couple of original projects lined up so Disney is looking for a new director to take over the director’s chair of Hercules, which means it’s likely that we won’t hear anything about this cast for another six to seven months.
Ritchie had also been tapped to rework Callaham’s script back in 2022.
Guy Ritchie via JRE Clips YouTube
The Hercules film is being produced by Anthony and Joe Russo, the directors of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Joe Russo spoke with Variety back in 2022 about the project explaining how it will be different than other Disney live-action projects.
He said the film will be “a little bit more experimental in tone, a little bit more experimental in execution.”
Russo added, “I think they’re excited to see what we can all bring to it in a way that isn’t just a reinterpretation of the animated film.”
James Woods as Hades in Hercules (1997), Walt Disney Pictures
Interestingly, he would go on to explain that the film will be a musical, but it might look different than what one might expect from a musical.
“There are questions about how you translate it as a musical,” he shared. “Audiences today have been trained by TikTok, right? What is their expectation of what that musical looks like and feels like? That can be a lot of fun and help us push the boundaries a little bit on how you execute a modern musical.”
A scene from Hercules (1997), Walt Disney Pictures
What do you make of Guy Ritchie exiting the director’s chair of Hercules?
