Elizabeth Banks won”t be back in the director chair for Pitch Perfect 3.
Banks did not leave the gig “in favor of a specific project, sources say, but her increasingly packed schedule did play a part in her exit as director,” Variety reported on Friday.
She will still be a producer on the project, as she was for the first two films, and she is set to to reprise her role as a cappella competition commentator Gail.
Pitch Perfect 2, which was Banks” feature directorial debut, was the 2015″s highest grossing film directed by a woman. It remains the fifth-highest grossing film with a woman director and at the #3 spot on the list of movies directed solo by women without a male co-director.
The news of her departure from the directing gig comes three days after the news that Pitch Perfect 3“s release date has been bumped from July 2017 to December 22, 2017.
No word yet on who will be the new leader for the Barden Bellas.