It was announced that Tim Burton will direct Dumbo, a live action movie produced by Disney.

The Alice in Wonderland director will remake 1941’s Dumbo and turn it into a live action movie, which in filmmaking lingo means a cinematographic production that is not animated and that is based on animated series or feature film.

Disney has confirmed that Tim Burton would be the director to the studio’s live action remake of 1941 Dumbo, an animation about a baby elephant with ears so bug that he could fly.

Tim Burton has directed the Disney box-office hit Alice in Wonderland, which earned a whopping $1 billion worldwide. The screenwriter of the new Dumbo movie will be Ehren Kruger, who has also written Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

The film is in the early stages of production and there is no information about other people attached to the project. Still, what is known is the fact that this modern live action movie will feature a unique family story that parallels the journey of Dumbo, adding an expansion to the original story. The original Disney animation is relatively short, in comparison to modern movies, just 60 minutes long.

Dumbo is a baby elephant who works for the circus and is teased for having big ears, until he learns to use them as wings and learns to fly. The movie was nominated for best original song (Baby Mine) and won an Academy Award for best scoring of a musical picture.

Dumbo has also gained lots of criticism for its use of racial stereotypes in its depiction of jive-talking crows.

Disney has had a lot of success for its fairytale adaptations, such as last year’s Maleficent. This year Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Cinderella is already gaining success and is becoming a box office hit. In the immediate future, the studio plans to release two live action takes on Through the Looking Glass, which is a sequel to Alice in Wonderland directed by Tim Burton, and The Jungle Book. In 2017, it will launch a live action movie with Emma Watson and Dan Stevens (Downtown Abbey) based on Beauty and the Beast.

Image Source: Project Casting