The upcoming live-action Disney movie The Nutcracker And The Four Realms has welcomed its first cast member – legendary ballerina Misty Copeland. Her appearance in the movie will mark her first involvement in narrative cinema, having already featured on television reality shows, as well as a documentary about her own early career, A Ballerina’s Tale.
The film will be helmed by Academy Award nominee Lasse Hallstrom (Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, The Shipping News, Chocolat), armed with a script by Ashleigh Powell, who makes her screenwriting debut here. With Mark Gordon (Grey’s Anatomy) producing the project, it is notable that the first casting choice is a strong one – recognizing that Misty Copeland is a world-renowned, award winning talent. It also indicates the tone that Hallstrom will be striving for – evidently mixing his own visual flair with the rich musical history of the tale.
While The Nutcracker is best known as a two-act ballet, scored by Tchaikovsky, the production was actually an adaptation of E.T.A Hoffman’s The Nutcracker And The Mouse. The ballet adaptation was written by Alexandre Dumas, and was called The Tale Of The Nutcracker. It seems that Disney’s The Nutcracker And The Four Realms will be an adaptation of Hoffman’s original story, with inclusion of the iconic music from the ballet.
As a package, this would therefore seem to be very much a celebration of the tradition that is at the core of The Nutcracker. Blending the original source material with aspects of Tchaikovsky’s music, and casting one of the world’s greatest ballerinas in a prominent role suggests that Lasse Hallstrom intends to deliver something truly innovative and groundbreaking in the form of The Nutcracker And The Four Realms – and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for us.