Disney’s Tangled to get a live-action makeover

The Greatest Showman's Michael Gracey is in talks to direct this new take on 2010's hit animated retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale about an imprisoned long-haired princess.
December 12, 2024

Rapunzel and Flynn Rider are about to leave their animated tower and step out into the real world, as a live-action remake of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Tangled gains momentum.

Disney is in negotiations with Aussie filmmaker Michael Gracey to helm this project, which is the studio’s latest attempt to reimagine one of its animated princesses in a new format. Producing live-action fairytale adaptations has become a common theme in Disney’s playbook, starting with Maleficent in 2014 and ending with last year’s The Little Mermaid

Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Thor: Love and Thunder) is currently penning a screenplay for producers Kristin Burr (Cruella) and Lucy Kitada (The Baby-Sitters Club).

While the box-office performance of Disney’s live-action remakes has been somewhat uneven, this strategy has yielded billion-dollar grossers like Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Aladdin (2019). The next live-action princess pic to premiere will be Snow White on March 21, 2025.

Tangled tells the story of Rapunzel, a princess with extraordinarily long tresses who has been locked up in a tower all her life. She decides to escape one day in order to see the king and queen release sky lanterns at an annual jubilee. Her plan involves distracting her jailor, Mother Gothel, and teaming up with an outlaw and guard horse.

Released in 2010, this critically acclaimed CG-animated pic grossed US$592.5 million against a hefty US$260-million budget (making it the most expensive animated film of all time). And Tangled‘s hit soundtrack scooped up a 2011 Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song (“I See the Light”).

Signs point to Disney banking on a music hook for the live-action film as well since Gracey previously directed 2017’s The Greatest Showman and this year’s Robbie Williams biopic Better Man. He was also attached as an EP on Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie, playing a key role in the soundtrack for this 2023 animated feature film.

This won’t be the first entertainment expansion of the Tangled franchise. A 2012 short film called Tangled Ever After and 2017 TV film Tangled: Before Ever After and series Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure have come before it.

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