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Hunchback of Notre Dame next to get Disney remake treatment

Disney goes bells-out as a new remake follows The Jungle Book, Lion King and Dumbo.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
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Richard Trenholm
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Disney

The Disney remake machine just keeps rolling. 1996 animation The Hunchback of Notre Dame is set for a live-action reboot, adding it to the list of past Disney movies being updated.

Josh Gad, who previously played Steve Wozniak in the lesser-known Steve Jobs movie and voiced Olaf in Disney's animated hit Frozen, will produce the new film. According to Deadline it's titled simply Hunchback and will be be written by Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang.

Although it's being called a live-action remake, if it's anything like The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast this film will only involve a few real actors surrounded by a whole cathedral-full of CGI. So it might be better described as "photorealistic".

This year alone, Disney is regaling us with no less than three such photorealistic updates: Dumbo, The Lion King and Aladdin. And with Disney launching a new streaming service Disney+, it's raiding the vaults to create new versions of The Rocketeer, 3 Men and a Baby, Father of the Bride, High Fidelity, Lady and the Tramp, Peter Pan, The Parent Trap, The Sword in the Stone, the Mighty Ducks and Monsters Inc. That's a lot of Disney.

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