Wes Bentley Joins Robert Redford in Disney Remake ‘Pete’s Dragon’ (Exclusive)

“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” helmer David Lowery is directing the remake of the 1977 family film

“Hunger Games” actor Wes Bentley has signed on to star in Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon,” an individual with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.

As TheWrap was the first to report, “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” director David Lowery is directing the film he was first hired to co-write.

Robert Redford and Bryce Dallas Howard also have roles in the new film.

The original 1977 film featured an animated dragon interacting with a live-action cast including Mickey Rooney, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons and Sean Marshall, who played an orphan fleeing his abusive adoptive parents.

Lowery and Toby Halbrooks wrote the script, which reinvents the core of the original family film, which is not expected to be a musical this time around. The story follows a young boy, Pete (Oakes Fegley), whose parents are dead. He is subsequently raised by the titular dragon in a forest.

Bentley, who played gamemaker in the first “Hunger Games” movie, most recently had roles in “Interstellar” and on “American Horror Story: Freak Show.” He’ll next be seen in Terrence Malick‘s “Knight of Cups” and Zac Efron DJ movie “We Are Your Friends.”

He is represented by WME and Untitled Entertainment.

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