Disney’s Live-Action Tangled Sets a 2028 Date, and a First Look at Rapunzel
Disney dated its live-action Tangled for March 31, 2028 at D23 2026, with Teagan Croft as Rapunzel, Milo Manheim as Flynn Rider, and Kathryn Hahn as Mother Gothel.
Todd Ruffner-Schoenfeld
Editor in chief. A knack for the fine print, and likes it.
Disney is letting its hair down. At the D23 2026 Disney Entertainment Showcase, the studio unveiled a first look at its live-action Tangled and set the film for March 31, 2028.
Michael Gracey, the director of The Greatest Showman, is helming the reimagining of Disney’s 2010 animated hit. Teagan Croft takes the tower as Rapunzel, with Milo Manheim as Flynn Rider and Kathryn Hahn as the scheming Mother Gothel. The ensemble also includes Diego Luna, Caitriona Balfe, and Elliot Cowan.
The first-look footage gave fans their earliest sense of how the film reframes the story, and Hahn’s casting as Mother Gothel quickly became one of the reveal’s biggest talking points.
There is a fun thread in the casting. Teagan Croft spent five seasons as Raven, the brooding empath of DC’s Titans, so Rapunzel is a sharp turn toward the light. Milo Manheim grew up a Disney Channel star as Zed in the Zombies movies, and he is the son of Emmy winner Camryn Manheim, who also turns up at D23 this year in the Romy and Michele sequel. Kathryn Hahn, meanwhile, trades one witch for another, stepping from Marvel’s Agatha Harkness to Mother Gothel.
What we know
Michael Gracey likes a big swing. He directed The Greatest Showman, and his last film, Better Man, told the story of pop star Robbie Williams with Williams played, from start to finish, by a computer-generated monkey. A live-action Tangled is comparatively grounded, but the appetite for spectacle is the same.
The 2010 Tangled, with songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater, gave the Rapunzel fairy tale a modern, wisecracking spin and became one of Walt Disney Animation’s most beloved films of its era. Bringing it to live action puts one of the studio’s signature musicals in the hands of a director who built his name on spectacle.
Menken is one of the most decorated names in movie music. He is an eight-time Oscar winner whose songbook runs from The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast to Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hercules, and Enchanted. There is even a small echo in the new cast, since Manheim recently played Seymour in an off-Broadway revival of Menken’s Little Shop of Horrors.
Tangled is part of a deep live-action slate Disney laid out at D23. It reaches theaters about two months before the studio’s Lilo & Stitch 2, and joins the animation, Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm reveals gathered in our film hub.
[Aug 15, 9:15 a.m. PT] A live glimpse from the set: Teagan Croft and Milo Manheim, who play Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, sent a taped message from filming in Spain.
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More from the showcase in our Disney Film at D23 2026 hub.
