So This Is Love? Disney Is Taking “Sleeping Beauty” in an Entirely New Direction

So this is love…

Or, at least, it might be a version of the story we haven’t seen before.

Disney is once again opening the storybook on one of its most recognizable animated classics, with a new project inspired by “Sleeping Beauty” now in early development. But while revisiting a beloved fairy tale is certainly nothing new for Disney—or Hollywood in general—there is something about this particular project that already feels different.

As first exclusively reported by Deadline, “Prey” director Dan Trachtenberg is attached to direct an untitled original film inspired by Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty,” with the project expected to take the familiar tale in an entirely new direction.

And “inspired by” might be the most interesting part of that sentence.

Disney has spent years finding new ways to revisit its animated library, while countless movies, television series and books have similarly taken familiar fairy tales and examined them through different characters, genres and perspectives. “Sleeping Beauty” itself has already received a major Disney reimagining through Angelina Jolie’s “Maleficent” films.

This isn’t that.

According to Deadline, the new project has no connection to the “Maleficent” movies. Trachtenberg and Rayna McClendon developed the new story, with Alex Anfanger and Dan Schimpf writing the screenplay. Plot details are currently being kept firmly inside the castle walls, leaving exactly how much of the original “Sleeping Beauty” story—or which characters—we’ll actually recognize unknown.

That mystery is precisely what makes this one so interesting.

Rather than being announced as another direct live-action adaptation of Disney’s 1959 animated film, the project is being described as an original idea inspired by the classic tale. That opens a considerably larger storybook of possibilities than simply recreating Aurora’s familiar journey from animation in another medium.

Maybe the recognizable pieces are still there. Maybe we’re returning to kingdoms, curses and spinning wheels from an entirely different direction. Maybe the inspiration ultimately comes from something far less obvious about the original story.

Right now, we simply don’t know.

But Trachtenberg is certainly an interesting filmmaker to hand those possibilities.

His recent work with Disney’s 20th Century Studios has centered on finding new ways into the long-running “Predator” franchise. He directed 2022’s “Prey” before continuing his work in that universe with “Predator: Badlands” and the animated “Predator: Killer of Killers.”

Now Disney is giving him a considerably different classic to explore.

Trachtenberg and longtime producing partner Ben Rosenblatt will produce the untitled “Sleeping Beauty”-inspired film alongside “Star Wars” producer Michelle Rejwan. Disney EVP Production Jessica Virtue is overseeing the project with Creative Executive Alina Mota.

With development still in its earliest stages, there is no announced cast, release date or official title, and Disney has yet to reveal what this new direction actually means for the story.

And perhaps that is why we’re already so curious.

We know what a straightforward live-action “Sleeping Beauty” could look like. We’ve already seen Disney turn the camera toward Maleficent and ask audiences to reconsider the villain standing opposite Aurora. What we haven’t seen is whatever Trachtenberg and his collaborators have apparently found inside this story that warrants building something original around it.

For a fairy tale that has been told, retold and reimagined for generations, finding a genuinely unexpected path through the forest isn’t exactly easy.

But Disney isn’t calling this another “Sleeping Beauty.”

It’s an original film inspired by “Sleeping Beauty.”

There is a difference.

Now we just have to wait and see where once upon a dream takes us next.