We’ll start with the good news: Nobody’s mad. A live-action Tangled remake is coming, according to industry scuttlebutt and the law of large numbers, but as the title of this article suggests, there will be no angry tweets. No demands that the studio be boycotted. This time, civility will prevail all because of a Netflix star we recently bid farewell to.
At least that’s the tenuous ceasefire on offer making the rounds on social media, with a caveat: Disney needs to make a specific casting choice, as dictated by the fans. Only then can the fighting stop. Only then will we know peace.
That’s what fans of the Netflix series Never Have I Ever bring to the negotiations with their fan-casting of Maitreyi Ramakrishnan in the role of Tangled’s Rapunzel.
The 21-year-old streaming star has a small army of vocal backers on Twitter, or X, or whatever the kids (or Elon Musk) like to call it these days.
Could a Netflix star bring Tangled to life?
Helpfully, Ramakrishnan, who rose to fame playing Devi on Never Have I Ever, has already expressed interest in playing the live-action version of the Disney princess. In 2021, she described the part as her “dream role” while speaking to CBS News.
Fans took note, and now they’re making their opinions known online.
And so, now the gauntlet has been thrown. Ramakrishnan’s considerable talent, unquestionable charm, and undeniable on-screen charisma aside, Disney has a difficult choice ahead of it. It can ignore social media users’ pleas and invite disdain, even fury, remembering the negative discourse that followed Halle Bailey’s casting as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, or welcome the People’s Choice Award nominee into the fold, trusting evidence that people who ask studios to do things on Twitter have historically been awesome about being totally chill once their demands are met.