The Mouse House is really digging deep into its treasure chest to bring back some of its Tentpole characters to the big screen. The trend started with the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feature and continued with ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’, this year’s ‘Maleficent’, and forthcoming efforts ‘Cinderella’, ‘The Jungle Book’, and ‘Beauty and the Beast’.
So even as ‘Maleficent’ continues raking in the moolah on its theatrical run, Disney has already lined up its next animation-to-live-action project: ‘Dumbo’, which has taken many trade pundits by surprise considering it’s not a film which comes to mind when thinking live-action.
According to The Hollywood Reporter Ehren Kruger, mostly known for churning out the Transformer scripts for Michael Bay will be scripting the adaptation – apart from the first in the franchise, he’s responsible for penning every single one, leading all the way up to Age of Extinction. Kruger is also credited with the scripts for the American version of The Ring, its sequel, The Ring 2, Scream 3 and Scream 4 and The Brothers Grimm.
The original film – Dumbo – revolves around a titular circus elephant, notable (and often tormented by obnoxious circus goers) for having especially large ears that give him the ability to fly; and the feature is incredibly short, with just over an hour of running time. Apparently, Disney plans to add “a unique family story” to their new take on the original, one that will play out concurrently with Dumbo’s own arc. With the movie about a flying elephant, it will certainly demand some pretty neat CGI work and Disney is banking on the modern day FX technology to pull off the feat in a live-action framework.
No other detail has been provided about ‘Dumbo’ as of now, and other than Kruger, only ‘Oblivion’ producer Justin Springer is on board to participate in its development.
