Reese Witherspoon to Star in Disney’s Live-Action Tinker Bell Movie

The actress is attached to star in and produce Tink, a live-action take on the classic Peter Pan character Tinker Bell. Witherspoon will produce with Bruna Papandrea, her partner at the duo’s production banner, Pacific Standard.

Victoria Strouse, who wrote the script for Pixar’s upcoming Finding Nemo sequel, Finding Dory, is penning the script for the project, which does not have a director on board and is still in development.

Details on the project’s angle are being kept deep in Pixie Hollow, but insiders say it will play with the idea and the timeline of the well-known Peter Pan narrative. It is also being developed in the vein of Maleficent, Disney’s 2014 hit that starred Angelina Jolie as the evil witch from Sleeping Beauty. Like Maleficent, this Tinker Bell tale is conceived as “the story you don’t know,” and will offer a new perspective on the character.

Unlike Maleficent or some other recent Disney movies, however, Tink is being developed to be made in a more modest, midrange budget.

Initially a minor and nonspeaking character in J.M. Barrie’s Pan story, Tinker Bell has, since her appearance in Disney’s 1953 classic animated feature, become one of the symbols of Disney and is at the center of the lucrative Disney Fairies franchise. Peter Pan’s fairy companion has typically been portrayed as a temperamental character who can become dangerously jealous due to her unrequited love for the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.