Within the past couple days, director Alfonso Cuaron has been the subject of at least a couple rumors spreading around several different projects in the works at Warner Bros.
Although it is not totally clear at the moment just what will be his follow-up to to Gravity, there is at least one film that fans can scratch his name off of the list to: the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them.
During an interview with Digital Spy, the Academy award-winning director had the following to say about rumors spreading about his involvement in the much-anticipated spin-off film:
"[Directing Prisoner of Azkaban] was a very beautiful experience for me. I have a lot of love for that universe and I tremendously admire JK Rowling, but today, for the present, projects based around lots of visual effects don’t attract me. I’m coming out of a five-year process of doing visual effects and now I sort of want to clean my palate of that a little bit."
Considering how much special effects were involved in Gravity, it's understandable that Cuaron would want to move away from them for at least a little bit of time. This doesn't mean that he wasn't approach for the project, just that he likely turned it down.
Although it is safe to say that he is not going to be doing this film, this report does still leave the possibility of him directing The Shining prequel The Overlook Hotel open.
But, believing that he is at a position in his career where he could very well make whatever movie he wanted and probably get the studio to sign it off, it doesn't seem likely that he would want to immediately want to jump right onto another franchise piece. But, it is possible, and just something that will have to be determined in due time.