Parisot – who in 1988 won an Oscar for the short film he co-directed, The Appointments of Dennis Jennings – is justifiably best known as the helmer of 1999's Galaxy Quest, a science fiction comedy that remains as wonderful today as it was thirteen years ago and contains a magnificently twitchy performance from Sam Rockwell.  Prior to that, Parisot.  Subsequent to Galaxy Quest, he handled the 2005 Jim Carrey vehicle Fun With Dick and Jane, as well as episodes of television series including Modern Family, Justified, and The Good Wife.

It seems that Red director Robert Schwentke won't be returning for another round, as Variety reports that Parisot is finalizing a deal with Summit to direct one of the distributor's last releases before its full and holy union with Lionsgate, which recently bought Summit.  Schwentke is currently in post-production on R.I.P.D. a supernatural action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges that's set for June 2013.

That's presumably why he's not returning, since Summit has targeted an August 2, 2013 release date for Red 2, or whatever the sequel will be officially titled.  A year ago, the studio hired Red screenwriters Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber to write the script.  While the original was loosely based on a comic book written by Warren Ellis and pencilled by Cully Hamner, but the duo is working from an original storyline for this next endeavor.

As of yet, Bruce Willis is the only castmember committed to return for the Red sequel.  Since Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, and, to a lesser extent, Mary-Louise Parker and Karl Urban were all essential to the first film's success, one imagines that at least some fraction of them will be returning.

We know nothing about the story, but if Parisot could please get Sam Rockwell in their somewhere, preferably as a villain, then Red 2 would undoubtedly become a gravy train on biscuit wheels.