Okay so Disney is doing a live-action Princess and the Frog, and before you roll your eyes at yet another remake, hear me out. This one is actually being developed as an original story about Tiana rather than a scene-for-scene redo of the 2009 animated film. That's already a meaningful difference, and the people attached to write it make it even more interesting.
Colman Domingo is in talks to co-write the project alongside Robert O'Hara, the Tony-nominated director best known for helming Slave Play on Broadway. No deals have officially closed yet, so this is still early days, but the combination of those two names signals that Disney might actually be trying something here. O'Hara has spent his career writing and directing work that puts Black identity at the center, exploring it with real complexity. Domingo, for his part, has been everywhere lately — Emmy nominations this year for The Four Seasons and Euphoria, a billion-dollar movie in Michael, and two back-to-back Oscar nods before that. He also has legitimate stage writing credits going back years, including the book for the Donna Summer Musical and co-producing the Tony-nominated Fat Ham. These are not names you attach to a project if you just want to coast.
The Princess and the Frog came out in 2009 and holds the distinction of being the last hand-drawn animated feature Disney ever released theatrically. It earned three Oscar nominations, grossed $267 million worldwide, and introduced Disney's first Black princess. It also has a long-standing fan complaint baked in — Tiana spends the majority of her own movie as a frog. A live-action spinoff that focuses on her as a human, in 1920s New Orleans, building her restaurant and navigating that world, has a genuinely compelling premise if the writers actually go there.
Disney has been having a rough stretch with this format. The live-action Moana just opened to $43 million domestically, which is a rough number for a production that cost around $250 million. Before that, Snow White landed with a thud. The formula of just recreating the animated version in slightly more expensive clothing clearly is not working anymore. A spinoff approach, more in line with how the parks handled Tiana's Bayou Adventure, at least gives the story somewhere new to go without inviting constant comparisons to something people already love. If you want to revisit the 2009 original before this one eventually arrives, it's on Disney+ and it genuinely holds up — the music, the animation, the bayou atmosphere. Just know that the best version of Tiana's story might still be ahead of her.
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