Falling in line with Disney’s run of mega-successful live-action fairy tales, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms has been pretty quiet for the mot part. That all changed just days ago when news quietly broke that Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) was stepping in to replace director Lasse Hallstron on more than a month of reshoots, aided by writer Tom McCarthy (Spotlight) who would provide additional material. As I said at the time, if this were a DC Films project there would be endless thinkpieces on the film’s eminent demise. But since it was Disney nobody blinked an eye.
The latest trailer certainly doesn’t make it look like a disaster, but then I guess we’ll have to wait and see how much of this stuff ends up in the final cut. Mackenzie Foy stars as the young girl who ventures through the Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers, and Land of Sweets for an eventual encounter with the Sugar Plum Fairy, played by Keira Knightley in really big hair. Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and ballerina Misty Copeland join in on the adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s play, which has become an annual holiday tradition.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms opens November 2nd 2018.
