When looking at the upcoming Disney movies on the way, there are a ton of magical fairytales and classic stories the House of Mouse coming to life. For years, I’ve been intrigued by the planned Prince Charming movie that has been in and out of the works, but now it sounds like it’s officially happening. A director has just been picked for the mysterious project, and now I’m totally on board.
According to Deadline, Paul King is set to helm the Prince Charming movie (along with co-writing the script with frequent collaborators Simon Farnaby and Jon Croker). Considering he’s the filmmaker behind the first two Paddington movies and last year’s Wonka, I’m starting to really warm up to what a movie leading a prince could offer a longtime Disney fan like myself.
While Paul King is enough to get me excited about Prince Charming, that’s basically all we have as far as information. The report says “plot details are unknown,” along with sharing that the movie will “not specifically be linked to Cinderella.” While in Disney’s history, Prince Charming is the name of Cinderella’s guy, the name is also a fairy tale stock character name that has been used in numerous folk tales.
With that in mind, there are tons of directions Paul King could go with a Prince Charming movie. Personally, with all the upcoming live-action Disney remakes being made by the studio, I hope this is an original spin on fairy tales that gives us new characters to fall in love with. After King made a musical out of Wonka, I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes this a song-and-dance affair.
Word that Walt Disney Studios was eyeing to feature Prince Charming first came out back in 2017. At the time, reports suggested that the movie would actually be about the brother of Prince Charming, who has had a hard time living up to his name. The Perks of Being A Wallflower and Wonder filmmaker Stephen Chbosky was attached to the movie before ultimately making the Dear Evan Hansen movie adaptation instead. When he was asked about the movie while he was on it, he called it “Princess Bride meets Disney.”
Paul King has his hands on Prince Charming just ahead of his next movie Paddington in Peru heading to theaters in January. While he wrote and directed the first two Paddington movies, he stepped back to an executive producer role (along with working on the story for the movie), likely due to Wonka being in production around the same time. The filmmaker has been part of the best family movies in recent years in my opinion, so I have faith his collaboration with Disney will be charming as heck!