UPDATE 7/29/16: Announced today, Morgan Freeman is in talks to join Disney’s upcoming live-action “The Nutcracker.” Assuming these talks lead to an agreement, Freeman will join a cast that includes Misty Copeland as the lead ballerina and Mackenzie Foy starring as Clara.
Full details on the project follow below, including the announcement of Copeland’s casting.
Freeman was most recently seen on the big screen in “Now You See Me 2” and “London Has Fallen” earlier this year. He will next appear in “Ben-Hur” reboot for MGM, arriving in theaters on Aug. 19.
Previous news of “The Nutcracker” below…
Misty Copeland has joined the cast of Disney’s film adaptation of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” by E.T.A. Hoffmann.
To be titled “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,” Lasse Hallström is set to direct the film, from a script penned by Ashleigh Powell, which tells the story of a young girl who is tasked with taking care of a Nutcracker doll which comes to life, along with an evil Mouse King with seven heads.
Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” was published in 1816 and in 1892, Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky turned the story into the ballet “The Nutcracker,” which became one of his most famous compositions, and possibly the most popular ballet ever.
Mark Gordon is producing the film adaptation, with Lindy Goldstein executive producing.
Sam Dickerman and Allison Erlikhman are overseeing the project for Disney.
Sara Smith is overseeing for The Mark Gordon Company.
Copeland, who has a number of other screen projects lined up (both in front of and behind the camera) became the first African American woman to be the principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre last year. One of those other projects is a biopic based on memoir, “Life In Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina.”
