Although he’s best known as an actor at this point, Colman Domingo has a long history as a writer—most notably in theater, where the Disclosure Day star is an accomplished playwright and Tony nominee with credits stretching back to the 1990s. All of which goes some—if not all—of the way toward explaining a rather odd report from Deadline tonight, which states that Domingo is apparently in conversations to co-write a new movie for Disney centered on Tiana, the protagonist of 2009’s The Princess And The Frog.
This is all apparently in very early talks, to the point that no deals are in place for either Domingo or Robert O’Hara, the playwright and occasional screenwriter and director best known for his Tony-nominated work on 2018’s Slave Play, who Domingo is apparently set to write the film with. Deadline does note that while the film, as currently described, will be live-action, it will apparently not be a remake, and instead is being described as a “spin-off” of the animated original.
Princess And The Frog was a decent-sized hit when it landed in theaters in 2009, and has maintained a well-kept legacy—especially since it ended up being the last traditionally animated film in Disney’s oeuvre to date. (The pretty great slate of songs, penned by Randy Newman, and featuring stand-outs like “Almost There” and “Friends On The Other Side,” didn’t hurt.) Of course, it’s not at all clear right now if Domingo and O’Hara’s version will go the musical route itself—Domingo has experience in the field, having penned the book for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical—but, given how central music is to the film’s New Orleans setting, it’d feel like a missed opportunity not to. But, really, we don’t know what to expect here; this is a pretty odd pairing of talent and subject matter, so we’ll have to wait and see what kind of actual magic, if any, it winds up producing.
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