Disney’s live-action remakes of its animated classics have become a franchise all their own. There have been good and bad movies among all the Disney live-action remakes, but there’s no slowing down the train. Among the upcoming Disney movies in the next few months, we’ll be getting both Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to the “live-action” Lion King movie, and the long-awaited Snow White movie starring Rachel Zegler. We also know there’s a live-action Moana on the way and Hercules is in development. Several other remakes are reportedly also in development, but none are as anticipated as Tangled.
The rumor that a Tangled remake is one of those on the drawing board at Disney has been around for years. While Disney has never confirmed the film is in development and did not do so during the recent D23 Entertainment Showcase, that hasn’t stopped fans from casting the alleged film. While too much time has passed to make original Tangled cast leads Zachary Levi and Mandy More reprise their roles in live-action, the way The Rock is doing in Moana, there’s a solution for that that is making the rounds online: make them parents.
This is actually a pretty great idea. We’re used to seeing cameos from original stars in remakes. It’s a nice way to tip the hat and include them in the new version. In most Disney remakes, that’s not an option because we’re talking about movies that are decades old. But Tangled, like Moana, is a fairly recent film, and so that option exists. It would be a shame to let it go by without taking advantage of it.
Levi and Moore are sort of the “parents” of Tangled. They could be cast as the king and queen, Rapunzel’s parents. It would essentially be a cameo, since in the original animated film, the characters only appear at the beginning and end of the movie and don’t even have any dialogue. A live-action remake would almost certainly expand those parts, but they still wouldn’t be major characters.
There is one other “parent” in the movie that could also work: has anybody suggested casting Mandy Moore as Mother Gothel? It would give her a bigger role, let her sing at least one song, and would completely turn the casting upside down, but it could be a lot of fun. It would leave us with a need to find a role for Zachary Levi, but I’m sure we can come up with something. He can run the Snuggly Duckling.
Many different names have been suggested as allegedly in consideration to play the leads in a Tangled remake. Even Zachary Levi has his thoughts on who should play Flynn. It does seem like only a matter of time before such a movie becomes a reality and Disney will have to cast somebody in these parts.