Chris Columbus isn’t returning to what he does best – making smile-provoking fantasy flicks for the whole family - just yet.
The writer/director, whose back-catalog includes such fantastical hits as “Gremlins”, “The Goonies”, “Adventures in Babysitting”, and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”, is attached to produce, via his 1492 shingle) a screen adaptation of "The Help," the bestselling Kathryn Stockett novel about African-American domestic servants and their wealthy white employers in Mississippi before the civil rights era.
According to Variety, Tate Taylor, an actor-turned-director who previously directed the 2008 feature "Pretty Ugly People," showed the book to Columbus, whom he met in San Francisco because Taylor's niece and nephew attended the same school as Columbus' kids.
Taylor will write and direct the film.
Columbus, whose last film was the dire teen comedy “I Love You Beth Cooper”, is still beseeching finance for the project.
