Disney is back to developing a live-action adaptation of their animated hit “Tangled,” and the studio is eying Scarlett Johansson for the role of Mother Gothel. Mother knows best, after all.
Michael Gracey, director of “The Greatest Showman” and “Better Man,” is still attached to direct the project, working from a script by “I Know What You Did Last Summer” director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. The original film, released back in 2010, was written by Dan Fogelman and directed by Byron Howard and Nathan Greno.
Rapunzel and her thief companion/love interest Flynn Rider have yet to be cast.
There was talk that Disney was cooling on their live-action output following the disappointing release of “Snow White” earlier this spring. That film, directed by Marc Webb and starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, was hugely expensive (with a rumored budget of $270 million) and made only $205.7 million worldwide. But then came “Lilo & Stitch,” which was released at the end of May and wound up making a whopping $1.o37 billion worldwide, making it the most successful domestically released movie of the year. Disney currently has a sequel in development, with Chris Sanders, director of the animated original, returning to write and potentially direct.
Johansson has notably had a contentious relationship with Disney, suing the company in 2021 for breach of contract after they sent her “Black Widow” to theaters and Disney+. Still, she has a number of projects in development with the studio, including a movie based on the popular Tower of Terror attraction, with her “Transformers One” director Josh Cooley writing the screenplay and Taika Waititi directing.
Her recent credits include “Jurassic World Rebirth” and Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” while her directorial debut “Eleanor the Great” was released earlier this year. She is currently filming James Gray’s “Paper Tigers.”
