Tangled , the animated Rapunzel story from Walt Disney Animation, will soon be getting the royal treatment as Disney is creating a new television series for Disney Channel to begin airing in 2017. According to a press release from Disney Channel, Tangled: Before Ever After is said to be set in within the time frame between the ending of the original 2010 movie (where Rapunzel is rescued from her tower with the help of Flynn Rider, a.k.a. Eugene) and the beginning of the 2012 short, Tangled Ever After (wherein Rapunzel and Eugene get married.) Though born a princess, Rapunzel spent most of her life in a tower. She doesn’t really know how to be a princess nor does she know how to act toward her subjects, the townspeople of Corona, which should allow for a lot of fun, new adventures.
Produced by Disney Television Animation, Tangled: Before Ever After is being created with so much talent that adults just might want to watch the show with their kids. The show is being developed by Shae Prigmore ( The Lego Movie ) and Chris Sonneburg ( Enchanted ) who serves as executive producer and supervising director. Benjamin Balistreri ( How to Train Your Dragon ) is serving as supervising producer, Jase Ricci ( Pen Zero: Part-Time Hero ) as story editor and Alan Bodner ( The Iron Giant ) as art director.
As to be expected, both Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi will once again lend their voices to the roles that they played in Tangled but they will be joined with an impressive list of voice talent including:
- Ashley Judd: Rapunzel’s mother, Queen Arianna
- Clancy Brown: Rapunzel’s father, King Frederic
- Richard Kind: Uncle Monty
- M.C. Gainey: Captain of the Guards
- Sean Hayes: Pete the Guard
- Diedrich Bader: Stan the Guard
- Eden Espinosa: Cassandra, Rapunzel’s handmaiden
- James Monroe Iglehart: Lance Strongbow, Eugene’s friend
- Jeff Ross: Hook Foot, Hook Hand’s brother
- Peter MacNicol: Nigel the advisor
- Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: Xavier the blacksmith
- Jeffrey Tambor, Paul F. Tompkins, Charles Halford and Steve Blum will all play pub thugs who hang out at the Snuggly Duckling.
Tangled: Before Ever After isn’t Disney’s first TV adaptation of one of its animated films. The Little Mermaid ran from 1992-1994 and Aladdin ran from 1994-1995. Both shows tried to maintain the look and feel of their original movies. Disney tried to go a different route with their TV adaptation of 101 Dalmatians that ran from 1997-1998. This series was more comedic than the movie and the animation style was much different from the original film.
From 1997-1998, Disney created a TV series based on Hercules that also tried to extend the film’s original look and feel; however, this show was set when Hercules was a teenager. Disney did the same treatment for the Emperor’s New School (an adaptation of The Emperor’s New Groove ) that ran from 2006-2008. However, the TV series that has veered off most in regard to both look and feel from the original source material is The 7D , which is loosely based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .
What “look” will Tangled: Before Ever After have? For this show, he animators were faced with an unusual situation as the original film was a highly detailed computer-generated film. The new TV series keeps the characters looking the same but with a more 2D feel created by Claire Keane, daughter of Disney Legend Glen Keane, who was the animation supervisor of the original film as well as Frozen . The drawings actually look like the characters jumped out of a Golden Book. One thing that true fans of the story will notice is that Rapunzel appears to have her long flowing locks once again. (Spoiler warning: at the end of the movie’s story, she becomes a brunette with a short and sassy hairdo.)
Tangled: Before Ever After will also be similar to the original movie in that it will also feature new music by the film’s original composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater. Slater will also work with composer Kevin Kliesch, who worked on Tangled Ever After .
Tangled , Walt Disney Animation Studio’s 50th animated film, was a huge hit when it came into theaters in 2010 and lofted the Disney princess to star status alongside Snow White and Cinderella. The film was one of the studio’s biggest releases, which has since been surpassed by Frozen and the recent release of Zootopia .
[Photo courtesy of Disney Television Animation]