One of Hollywood’s best-known stars will also be the screenwriter of Disney’s next unnecessary remake

Colman Domingo has won an Emmy and been nominated for two Oscars as well as two Tonys. You might think that an actor of his stature, who in 2024 was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world, would be above certain projects. However, he doesn’t think it’s beneath him to appear in clearly mainstream films like Wicked: For Good, Michael, The Day of Revelation or The Running Man. And that helps explain the latest project he’s jumped into headfirst.

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Colman and the frog

After the monumental failure of Moana, you’d think Disney might think twice about its plan to keep churning out remakes of animated films without restraint. Instead, it has hired Domingo to be the co-writer of The Princess and the Frog, the modern version of the 2009 classic. Until now, the actor has mostly written plays, but perhaps that’s exactly what the media giant is looking for.

The Princess and the Frog was Disney Animation Studios’ last 2D film (with the exception of Winnie the Pooh), and when it came out it grossed $271 million at the box office, a respectable total but not enough to keep backing the format. Now, it will have a live-action version, because Disney may be hoping it’ll be more like Lilo & Stitch than Moana. You never know.

Its co-writer will be Robert O’Hara, who previously wrote the hit play Slave Play, and both promise to offer a fresh take on the original. So much so that Disney has even come up with another name for it, Tiana, in an attempt to make us forget what we all know: that it’s just another remake among the many we’ve come to expect. We’ll have to see whether the change is enough to keep people from yawning. At first glance, I wouldn’t count on it.