Disney to make Maleficent and Jungle Book sequels
A second Jon Favreau-directed Jungle Book will be made and Angelina Jolie will reprise her role in a Maleficent sequel, Disney has announced.
The studio also confirmed a Mary Poppins sequel, starring Emily Blunt, and 101 Dalmatians spin-off, Cruella. The Mary Poppins film will also star Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote and performed in Broadway hit, Hamilton. A Tim Burton-directed Dumbo and a "Tinker Bell project" starring Reese Witherspoon are also in development. Also confirmed by Disney were a live-action adaptation of Madeline L'Engle's fantasy novel A Wrinkle In Time, the Dwayne Johnson-starring Jungle Cruise and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, a Christmas story based on ETA Hoffman's 19th Century tale. The studio also confirmed writers for the projects, which include Kelly Marcel, who wrote the screenplays for Fifty Shades of Grey and Saving Mr Banks, penning the Cruella film, and Jennifer Lee, who wrote Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph, scripting A Wrinkle In Time. While not confirming release dates for any of the films, the studio did announce a release schedule, which will see live-action films based on fairy tales released in July 2017, April 2018 and December 2019, and another two untitled films put out in March and December 2018. The new version of The Jungle Book, a mixture of live action and animation featuring the vocal talents of Idris Elba and Bill Murray, has taken over $160m (£110m) in its first two weeks of release in the US, while live-action films Alice In Wonderland, Cinderella and Maleficent took a combined $2.5bn (£1.7bn).