Diego Luna is set to join Disney’s live-action take on “Tangled.”
The actor will be stepping into a newly created role for the feature as it prepares to begin filming in Spain this June. The project adapts the studio’s 2010 Academy Award-nominated animated film and marks another collaboration between Luna and Disney after “Andor.”
Character details are being kept under wraps. As previously announced, Teagan Croft and Milo Manheim lead the ensemble as Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, the thief who helps her escape the tower, with Kathryn Hahn set to play the villainous Mother Gothel.
Michael Gracey, who directed “The Greatest Showman” and “Better Man,” is set to direct the project, working from a screenplay from Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.
Released in 2010 and directed by Byron Howard and Nathan Greno, “Tangled” was a twist on Rapunzel and marked the beginning of a creative resurgence at Walt Disney Animation Studios. The film grossed nearly $600 million worldwide.
Kristin Burr is producing via Burr! Productions. Lucy Kitada is the executive producer.
Disney’s live-action remake strategy has been a company hallmark for over a decade, as films like “Alice in Wonderland,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King” have each passed $1 billion at the box office.
There was talk that Disney was cooling on its live-action pipeline following the release of “Snow White” last spring, which bombed. That film, directed by Marc Webb and starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, was massively expensive (with a rumored budget of $270 million) and made only $205.7 million worldwide.
But then came “Lilo & Stitch,” which was released last May and grossed $1.037 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing domestic release of the year.
Along with his role as Cassian Andor in the critically acclaimed “Andor,” Luna gained global recognition with films like “Y Tu Mamá También” and in the Netflix series “Narcos: Mexico,” where he played drug lord Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.
