UPDATE: 2023/07/17 20:02 EST
Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman has denied reports that a live-action movie was in the works with Sir Kenneth Branagh tapped to direct. Weisman responded to queries about the film on Twitter, where he stated, "I'm thinking... that it's flat-out not true."
The original article, which was written before Weisman's comments, can be read below:
Academy Award-winning writer and director, Kenneth Branagh, who was the first film director to bring Thor into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2011's Thor, is reportedly going to be adapting the classic 1994-97 cartoon series, Gargoyles, about a clan of gargoyles transported from Scotland to New York City, into a live-action film. The original series was primarily written by Greg Weisman, Michael Reaves and Brynne Chandler Reaves.
The news was reported by Branagh's hometown newspaper, The Belfast Telegraph, early this morning.
The Long Road to a Gargoyles Live-Action Film
Even while the Gargoyles animated series was still on the air, its acclaimed blend of action and drama (especially its ability to push the boundaries of what was acceptable for children's animation, including its award-winning episode about gun violence, a truly shocking subject for a kid's show of the era) made it an appealing project for a live-action adaptation, and Disney began attempting to do a live-action film based on the series as early as 1995.
The earliest attempts were quite dark, and after a revised draft (that was even darker), the project went into limbo. It was brought back into development in 2010 when X-Men movie producer Lauren Shuler Donner and Wolverine and The X-Men writer Zoe Green began working on a film treatment. This version, though, was barely based on the original series at all, and instead used the series as a sort of springboard (like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies).
Most recently, in 2019, writer/director Jordan Peele expressed interest in doing a live-action version of the property, but that deal never came together.
Branagh, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2022 for Belfast, and has been nominated for Best Director twice in his career (once for Belfast, and once back in 1990, when he was also nominated for Best Actor for Henry V. He also was previously nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for his take on Hamlet in 1997), joins a growing list of brand-name directors who are adapting Disney animated works into live-action films.
Robert Zemeckis recently directed a live-action Pinocchio, and Guy Ritchie directed the live-action Alladin (and will be directing the sequel, as well). Branagh's Shakespearean roots pair well with genre works, which tend to be quite Shakespearean in nature, and Gargoyles is certainly that type of project, as well.
Source: The Belfast Telegraph, Twitter