Disney has put the live-action remake of The Sword in the Stone on hold.
The 1963 animation had been expected to follow the likes of Cinderella, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘The Lion King’ in being turned into a live-action blockbuster by the media corporation but now, according to Damsel director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, the project has been put on the back burner for now.
He told Collider: “I was attached a long time ago, and I prepped a lot for Disney for that movie. I don’t know exactly what happened, but the studio decided to hold the project.
“So right now it’s in a holding situation, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, to be honest. But I think it’s a great story.”
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“I would be so keen to make it if they decided to greenlight the project.”
But Fresnadillo remains hopeful that The Sword in the Stone will eventually make it to the big screen in live-action form one day because there is a “big fanbase” of the animation that would be willing to see it.
He said: “But as you can imagine, this industry is always dealing with many projects, and you don’t know exactly which are the ones that are going to make it. So, yeah, The Sword in the Stone, I really hope that that happens because I think there is a big fanbase waiting for that.”
Meanwhile, the director has been working with Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, as well as Wakanda Forever actress Angela Bassett and former House of Cards star Robin Wright on the new Netflix film Damsel and spoke about what a “dream” it was to collaborate with those people.
He said: “The day that I pointed out that was like, ‘Oh my god, this is gonna be like a dream come true,’ is the meeting between Lady Bayford and Queen Isabelle with Angela Bassett and Robin Wright. To have those two actresses colliding into each other and having this kind of duel was a dream come true because I’ve loved them since I was a young filmmaker. I dreamt a lot about working with them, so having them in that scene was a blast.”
Damsel is now streaming on Netflix.
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