Walt Disney Studios will not rest until every single animated movie that you love has a live-action counterpart. As the studio preps a live-action Beauty and the Beast, while also fast-tracking a live-action The Lion King with Jon Favreau in the director's chair, we are now learning that Mulan will receive a live-action retelling in the next few years.
The movie will hit theaters on November 2, 2018, to be specific, according to a new report by Variety. The trade notes that Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver -- the writing dup whose credits include Jurassic World and the recent Planet of the Apes movies -- will tackle the script for Disney's new Mulan, while Jason Reed, Chris Bender and Jake Weiner will co-produce. No word on a director yet for this just-confirmed Disney project.
The release date gives Disney's Mulan a little more urgency, particularly because a rival Mulan project is on the books over at Sony. This reboot, at the time, was rumored to include an all-Chinese cast with a production set and based in China, with Chinese business partners. There hasn't been any news on this project, and now we wonder if Disney taking a big step forward with its own live-action Mulan will give Sony pause.
Released back in 1998, the animated Mulan was directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Book, and was based on a story by Robert D. San Souci. Mulan was a brave young girl who volunteered for military service to spare her father -- a veteran who happened to be the last male in their family during a time of combat. Mulan disguises herself as a man, and is accompanied by a dragon named Mushu (voiced by Eddie Murphy), whom the ancestors send as Mulan's protector.
Mulan arrived at an unusual time for Walt Disney Animation. The golden age of Beauty, Aladdin and The Lion King had passed, and movies like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules were struggling to reach the high bar set by their predecessors. Mulan's a good movie, but it's not exactly an all-timer (in my honest opinion), so there's room for improvement with a live-action telling.
So, tell us: How do you feel about the animated classics you grew up returning to theaters in live-action form. It's not necessarily a new trend, as Glenn Close played Cruella in 101 Dalmatians, and we have had live-action takes on Peter Pan and such. But with Maleficent and The Jungle Book, Disney is going hard into its animated library. Will you support the trend? Wanna know what else is coming?
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