Movie News: Disney Are Remaking Mulan

HollywoodReporter.com exclusively reports that Disney are producing a live-action adaptation of Mulan. The studio has brought a script about Hua Mulan, a legendary character in Chinese folklore who was a female warrior that passed herself as a man. Disney released an animated musicalised version of the tale was in 1998. The scribes behind this new script are Elizabeth Martin and Lauren Hynek, who have been friends since high school, and the team behind We’re the Millers will produce.

The website says Disney are very keen to replicate the success of Kenneth Branagh’s live-action reimagining of classic fairytale Cinderella. Maleficent, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of the villainess and starring Angelina Jolie, did particularly well for the studio last year and earned Jolie an award at the weekend.

While Branagh stayed faithful to the magic of the original, with helpful critters and a pretty gorgeous pumpkin carriage featuring heavily, we have a sense that the Mulan remake will be somewhat different. While slapstick dragons worked well in an animated setting, we sense that a live-action movie about a female soldier might ditch the impossible sidekicks to concentrate on the inner strength of a woman who broke convention completely to save her country. Gotta love a cross-dressing plot that represents female empowerment.

Between Mulan and Emma Watson’s upcoming Beauty and the Beast, we can’t contain our inner Disney fangirls. This time round we may even buy both Barbies.

What other Disney movies would you like to see remade?

hollywoodreporter.com

Follow Jeanne Sutton on Twitter @jeannedesutun