Colman Domingo is looking to step behind the page on a new Disney project. The two-time Oscar nominee is in talks to co-write a live-action take on Princess and the Frog, developed as an untitled Princess Tiana story rather than a direct remake of the 2009 animated film.
Domingo would team up with Robert O’Hara, the Tony nominated director of Slave Play, to pen the script. Sources describe it as still early days, particularly on the deal side of things.
Disney’s Princess and the Frog was the studio’s last hand drawn animated feature, released in 2009 and directed by John Musker and Ron Clements. Based on E.D. Baker’s The Frog Princess, the film follows Tiana, a New Orleans waitress voiced by Anika Noni Rose, who dreams of opening her own restaurant. After a run in with an evil voodoo witch doctor named Facilier, Tiana and Prince Naveen both end up turned into frogs and have to find a way back to human form.
The film grossed 267 million dollars worldwide and picked up three Oscar nominations, including Best Animated Feature and two nods for Randy Newman’s songs, “Almost There” and “Down in New Orleans.”
This new project is being billed as a spin-off in the mold of Disney’s upcoming Beauty and the Beast spin-off Gaston, rather than a full adaptation like the live-action Tangled currently in production. Other Disney animated to live-action projects in the pipeline include Stepsisters, a Cinderella spin-off directed by Akiva Schaffer, Lilo & Stitch 2 from Chris Sanders, and Impossible Creatures based on the Katherine Rundell fantasy series.
The timing is notable given the genre’s mixed track record this year. Dwayne Johnson’s live-action Moana opened well under expectations at 43 million dollars domestically, though it has held up strongly in its second weekend.
Domingo is coming off a busy stretch. He earned two Emmy nominations this year, for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for Netflix’s The Four Seasons and Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for HBO’s Euphoria, adding to the Guest Actor win he already picked up for Euphoria in 2022. He is also drawing awards buzz for his role as Joe Jackson in Antoine Fuqua’s Michael, which recently passed 1 billion dollars at the box office. Next week he guest hosts Jimmy Kimmel Live!
On the writing side, Domingo previously wrote the book for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical and co-produced the Tony nominated play Fat Ham. His other theatrical work includes The Brother(s), the libretto for Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole, and the plays Dot, Wild With Happy, A Boy and His Soul, and Up Jumped Springtime.
O’Hara previously directed and wrote the 2011 horror thriller Inheritance and wrote Insurrection: Holding History and Bootycandy, the latter of which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Drama.
Source: https://deadline.com/2026/07/colman-domingo-princess-and-the-frog-movie-tiana-1236997261/
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