Disney have some big plans for the next few years

After the success of The Jungle Book, Disney are sticking with their live action movies, at least for the foreseeable future. Not only are they releasing a number of movies from their other recently acquired franchises like Marvel's Doctor Strange and the Star Wars spin-off, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story from Lucasfilm, but they have also scheduled many more live action remakes, retellings, sequels and original stories for the next several years, up until December 2019. 

We have already seen films like Maleficent (2014), Into the Woods (2015) and Cinderella (2015) become big hits, which seems to have sparked the studio's latest interest in turning fairy tale stories into live action movies and now it looks as if they have stepped up a gear with Disney's recent announcement of nine more films to come over the next few years. Here's a list of the release dates we know of now:

• 28th July 2017 - Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
• 14th April 2017 - Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
• 3rd August 2018  - Untitled Disney Live Action Story
• 2nd November 2018 - Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
• 25th December 2018 - Untitled Disney Live Action Story
• 19th March 2019 - Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
• 8th November 2019 - Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale 
• 20th December 2019 - Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale   

But remember, although none of these dates have films attached to them yet, we know that they won't be filled by other Disney franchises such as Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar or Disney Animation. A list of films in the early stages of production has also been released though and although we are unlikely to know which films will take which spaces for a while, here they are:

• Cruella, with Emma Stone set as the title character and Kelly Marcel as the writer.

• A Wrinkle in Time, with Ava DuVernay attached to direct and Frozen's Jennifer Lee to write.

• Jungle Cruise, with Dwayne Johnson set to take the lead and John Requa and Glenn Ficarra to write.

• Dumbo, with Tim Burton as director and Ehren Kruger to write.

• Untitled Mary Poppins Sequel, starring Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, with Rob Marshall as director.

• Maleficent 2, with Angelina Jolie set to take the lead again, with Linda Woolverton as writer.

• The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, with Lasse Hallstrom directing and Ashleigh Powell penning this tale from 1816.

• The Jungle Book 2, with the return of Jon Favreau as director and writer, Justin Marks.

• Tink, a project in early development, starring Reese Witherspoon as Tinkerbell and written by Victoria Strouse.

The films mentioned above are the most likely candidates to fill the release dates between 2017 and 2019 as they are at least some way into production, even if it is just attaching an actor or director to a film, but characters such as Mulan, Peter Pan, Pinocchio and Rose Red, the sister of Snow White, may all be getting their stories retold in live action quite soon and so could just as easily fill those spots. 

Don't forget though, Disney already has the next twelve months planned out, with tomorrow's release of Alice Through the Looking Glass and the upcoming Pete's Dragon, out on 12th August. Next year we also have the retelling of Beauty and the Beast to look forward to, due on the 17th March, starring Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast, and also the next instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales, in cinemas on the 26th May.