Tangled (Live-Action)

[PatchofBlue]

Kathryn Hahn is a name me and my friends had floated around before the remake was even formally announced, and is honestly the best choice I could think of for the role. Johannson feels a little too young.

[Disney Duster]

I looove the idea of Kathryn Hahn as Gothel.

[Thumper_93]

I think that Susan is a little bit older for the role. Kathryn by the way looks amazing and is younger. It's more easy to make her look old than to make Susan look younger.

[Disney's Divinity]

Sarandon sounds great on paper since I can hear her voice in the role and she's a strong actor, but she was absolutely godawful as Narissa in Enchanted. Maybe OTT campy roles aren't her strength. A no at the other one.

Cher's still the perfect choice for me. She can sing and she's a good actor.

[Sotiris]

Corey Mylchreest revealed in a new interview that he had auditioned for the role of Flynn Rider for the live-action remake, but wasn't selected because his singing wasn't very good.

[carolinakid]

It’s a shame that dubbing has gone out of favor. I’d rather have a good actor in the role even if he or she lacks the musical talent.

[Disney's Divinity]

I agree. I don't understand what the big deal is about it. I guess they think autotune makes everything fine, and it does make it...bearable, but it stops the music from shining.

And the same goes for WDAS films, too. You seldom have someone perform the song when the speaking actor isn't up to it these days like what happened with Jasmine, Pocahontas and Esmeralda (also Anastasia), which is how you get the, well, subpar vocals from Mirabel in Encanto or Rapunzel in Tangled.

[Sotiris]

Gigi Hadid Auditioned for Rapunzel in Disney’s ‘Tangled’ Live-Action Remake Before It Got Paused After ‘Snow White’ Flop
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/gigi ... 236511962/

[Thumper_93]

Please no. The role should be for someone more unknown.

[PatchofBlue]

^In fairness, I don't know who this person is.

The movie spawned the Oscar-nominated song “When Will My Life Begin” and led to spinoffs as the 2012 short film “Tangled Ever After” and the 2017 TV series “Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.”

[Patricier21]

h

^In fairness, I don't know who this person is.

The movie spawned the Oscar-nominated song “When Will My Life Begin” and led to spinoffs as the 2012 short film “Tangled Ever After” and the 2017 TV series “Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.”

Well, what do you know an actual professional source actually got something wrong especially when this is considered one of the sites to actually get information right, EH?

[Sotiris]

‘Tangled’ Live-Action Take Resumes Early Development At Disney; Scarlett Johansson Circling Role Of Mother Gothel
https://deadline.com/2025/10/tangled-sc ... 236574770/

[PatchofBlue]

If they're not going to give us Hahn, they should at least go for an actress closer to 50.

I love ScarJo, but I have a hard time imagining her with lines like, "Oh look--you're here too!"

[Kyle]

I wouldn't want her as gothel, but it wouldn't be because of age alone. Like, maybe they would rather have someone younger so they show her in her youth more accurately. Its probably easier to age up than down from an effects standpoint.

[Disney Duster]

But maybe Scar Jo has the acting range to pull off Gothel's lines? Maybe she could surprise us with how good of an actress she really is? And yes Kyle, I agree about the age thing.

[Vlad]

There was an image of Cher and Amanda Seyfried at the Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again premiere, and the comments were like "They should be Rapunzel and Mother Gothel in the Tangled live-action". I wholeheartedly agree.

[Sotiris]

Iger’s willingness to yank Jimmy Kimmel off the air when threatened by Brendan Carr at the F.C.C. was surprising to many, but it was also a natural outgrowth of his public declaration last year that Disney content won’t “advance any kind of agenda.” That message has definitely been received internally and has manifested itself throughout the content operation, I’m told. Disney is about to cast a new Rapunzel in the revived live-action remake of Tangled. I’ll bet you the price of that long, braided wig that the gig will go to a white actress.

Source: https://puck.news/has-hollywood-gone-full-maga/

[PatchofBlue]

I've had the same thought. The public has been very clear about how they feel about Disney trying to use Disney Princesses as a launching pad for social progress. Liberals didn't take the bait, and conservatives were scandalized.

A part of me does kind of wonder, though, in a universe where Disney did cast, say, a Black Rapunzel, would the disillusioned parties actually hold their ground, or would they get curious enough to just try it out anyways? A part of me feels like everyone saw The Little Mermaid and Snow White as isolated stunts that they could sidestep for a moment before they plugged back in to the zeitgeist. If they came to see racebending as just being normalized, would they continue to dig their heels in? If they realized they couldn't just pick out the tomatoes, would they just give up eating salad forever?

Not that I expect the suits to show such tenacity, least of all Iger.

I'm halfway wondering, though, if they might be daring enough to racebend a prominent, non-princess character like Flynn.

Anyways, I don't doubt ScarJo's ability here. I'm just doubting whether she'd be a good fit based on her natural star persona. When you plug celebrities into these Disney remakes, they seldom mold their performance around the character, even when their natural energy just doesn't jive with the character they're assigned. Bill Murray gave a very "Bill Murray" rendition of Baloo. Jude Law gave a very "Jude Law" rendition of Hook. When I see Johanssen, I don't really see much of Mother Gothel, and I doubt they'd ask her to in the service of the character.

The one notable exception, I'll acknowledge, is Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. I remembered dreading her interpretation of Ursula simply because I didn't want Megan from Bridesmaids as a Disney villain. But she ended up being singular in her efforts and actually gave an Ursula-first performance. Maybe a similar thing would happen with ScarJo as Gothel, but I'm not banking on it.

[Kyle]

Those movies didnt bomb because they cast different races people, they bombed because they were bad movies, with poor direction.

[PatchofBlue]

I half agree with that.

I'll acknowledge this discussion is already going to be impossible to reach a wide consensus on because everyone just has a different way of ranking the Disney remakes. (I myself thought that The Little Mermaid was significantly better than Snow White.) But for the sake of conversation ...

Snow White was a sloppily composed movie with problems in the dialogue, the pacing, the narrative cohesion, etc. Ergo, its box office was matched by its merit. But these are all problems I would also attribute to earlier remakes like Maleficent or Beauty and the Beast. (I also don't think that The Jungle Book was ever as good as some people want to imagine ...) People were willing to overlook those deficits in earlier films for reasons we can all speculate on, but given that there was such a vocal outreach specifically over those movies having racebent leads, it's hard to ignore that factoring into their box office totals.

It's kind of like how I see some journalists saying that The Little Mermaid actually flopped specifically because of uncanny Flounder when The Lion King literally had an entire cast of taxidermied animals onscreen at all times, and that made a billion.

None of the remakes have been peak cinema, but seeing how the films that marketed themselves on advancing racial representation were so aggressively shut down, I think it's accurate to say racebending the leads is the thing that caused these remakes to start to lose face at the bank, not the quality of the filmmaking.