Disney’s Live-Action ‘Nutcracker’ Lands Oscar-Nominated Director Lasse Hallstrom

Disney’s slate of live-action remakes continues to grow (and seemingly never stops), but here’s one live-action project that isn’t based on a story previously adapted by the studio. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms will serve as a reimagining of the classic story, which has been told numerous times on stage and screen. For this particular re-telling, Disney has tapped Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallstrom, best known for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and The Cider House Rules.

THR reports that Disney has tapped Hallstrom to direct The Nutcracker and the Four Realms from a long-developing screenplay by Black List scribe Ashleigh Powell. The project is based on Peter Tchaikovsky’s long-running ballet, which was in turn based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.

The story centers on a young girl named Clara, whose grandfather gifts her with a nutcracker doll on Christmas. When the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve, Clara’s world is transformed and she’s thrust in the middle of a battle between the nutcracker and his doll soldiers and an army of mice. Clara is soon transported to a magical land where the nutcracker becomes a handsome prince.

The Nutcracker was last adapted for the big screen in 2009 as The Nutcracker in 3D, starring Elle Fanning, Nathan Lane and John Turturro.

Powell has been developing the screenplay for a couple of years now, while her Black List script Somacell is being adapted at Warner Bros. with David Goyer producing. Hallstrom most recently directed Safe Haven and The Hundred-Foot Journey, and his next film is A Dog’s Purpose, starring Bradley Cooper and Dennis Quaid.