John Hillcoat No Longer Attached To 'The Revenant' With Christian Bale, Jean-François Richet To Replace?

Will John Hillcoat ever catch a break? Despite previously talking with enthusiasm about "The Revenant," Hillcoat has now reportedly exited the project with French helmer Jean-François Richet in line as a replacement.

Scribe Mark L. Smith originally unveiled Hillcoat as being attached to helm the adaptation of Michael Punke's novel of the same name, which centers on the 1820s story of a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling. A feature adaptation had also been developed as a vehicle for Samuel L. Jackson and later had Park Chan-wook attached to helm though neither iterations came to fruition.

Pajiba are now reporting, though, that the project has lost Hillcoat as director for unexplained reasons but has Richet, the director of recent two-part crime epic 'Mesrine' starring Vincent Cassel, as a potential replacement. Richet's last Hollywood venture wasn't exactly a success ("Assault On Precinct 13") but his French crime epic garnered multiple César nominations and wins, along with strong notices from critics on this side of the ocean, no doubt part of the reason why he's being offered a return stateside.

The site also adds that Hillcoat is still attached to helm a remake of classic neo-noir "Le Cercle Rouge" possibly modernized by an Asian setting. On top of that, the director has more projects gestating than he can possibly chew on, including a potential teaming with Shia Labeouf and Chris Pine for cop-drama "Triple Nine," an adaptation of musical collaborator Nick Cave's novel "The Death Of Bunny Munro" being developed for television with Ray Winstone in the lead, and a Joe Penhall-scripted remake of "La Bonne Annee" with Daniel Craig.

We're still ruing the major cinephile loss that was the breakdown of Hillcoat's depression-era crime-drama "The Wettest Country In The World," which we now imagine would be like a working class version of Martin Scorsese's "Boardwalk Empire" on HBO. Someone, just please let Hillcoat go behind the camera for a feature film again...