Tangled Remake Happening! Why? Good Idea?
2025 has been a bit of an interesting year for Disney’s live action remakes. Snow White comes out and bombs at the box office. Months later Lilo & Stitch comes out and makes $1 billion. For a while there the future of Disney live action remakes was a bit in question. Now it’s confirmed what the future Disney live action remake is going to be, Tangled with a piece of casting possibly happening. Let’s talk about it!
The Article: https://deadline.com/2025/10/tangled-scarlett-johansson-resumes-development-1236574770/
My Thoughts
We’ve known that a live action remake of Tangled has been in the works for a while now. When Snow White came out and did terrible numbers it sounded like the film was canceled. Lilo & Stitch releases in May and makes $1 billion and then rumors circulate that Tangled is still in development. Today, it was confirmed that the film is still in the works. Michael Gracey, the director of The Greatest Showman is attached. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson is writing the script, she previously worked on Thor: Love and Thunder and I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025).
What do I think about Disney doing a live action remake of Tangled?
First up, the general thought that most people have is why. People often ask “why do we keep on getting live action remakes?” The answer is simple…we keep on buying tickets to them. Whenever a live action remake like Lilo & Stitch makes $1 billion, it’s telling Disney that we want more of them. If we want to stop getting live action remakes we need to stop supporting them. In particular what’s frustrating with Tangled and then Moana releasing next July is they’re adapting fairly new films. The live action remake of Moana is releasing only 10 years after the animated film and about two years after the animated sequel came out. Tangled I think fits into that category but not as much because the film right now is 15 years old. Assuming they start shooting this next year for a 2027 or 2028 release date, it’s going to be almost 20 years since the animated film came out. 20 years to remake a film isn’t a short amount of time. Should this happen? Probably not. I’d much rather see Disney do another original film that’s a fun action adventure film.
Second, I do think Tangled is a remake that lends itself to live action. Sometimes they try to adapt Disney classics that don’t work in live action, Snow White becoming the perfect example of that. Tangled has a largely human cast with plenty of action and chases. Tangled is a cinematic story so it’s a film that I can see being adapted into live action pretty easily, I don’t want it in live action but of the films they could adapt this one makes sense.
Third, the creative team behind the film is a bit mixed for me. On the one hand, The Greatest Showman is one of the more popular musicals of the last 10 years. People love that film and 8 years later, Hugh Jackman is still performing it on stage. So getting him to adapt a Disney musical into live action seems like a good fit. I don’t know what the quality of this film would be, I’d imagine the musical numbers will be very exciting. At the same time, my faith in Jennifer Kaitlyn Robinson writing the script isn’t very high. If you’ve seen me talk about Love and Thunder, you know it’s not very positive. I am not positive about that film and I think it’s a disaster and the worst MCU film we’ve gotten. She took the source material that I cared about, Thor and made it a mess and I hope she doesn’t do that with Tangled. I haven’t seen I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025), but it didn’t get great reviews and a lot of the problems I heard about seem to have come from a weak script.
Finally, the one bit of casting we got was that Scarlett Johansson is looking to be Mother Gothel in the film. It’s interesting casting because it’s not who I was expecting. People were fancasting either Helena Bonham Carter or Kathryn Hahn in the role. That’s probably because they have a history with playing wild evil magic users with big poofy black hair. But ScarJo is a great actress who is very versatile and can do a lot of things. If she’s interested and wants to be Mother Gothel in this film, then I’m curious as to what she can bring to the role.
Final Thoughts: So, I’m not particularly excited for it because I don’t wanna keep on getting these live action remakes. But Tangled is one that I think makes sense, I’m ok with them remaking Tangled at face value because it’s a more cinematic story that lends itself to live action. I’m not rejecting this idea as much as some people are, but I’m also not supporting the idea.
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