Twenty years after the release of Disney's animated musical film "Mulan," the studio will be returning to the big screen with the story in a live-action 3D film.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney is scheduled to release a live-action retelling of "Mulan" on Nov. 2, 2018, and is currently launching a "global casting search for a Chinese actress" to play the title character, who was voiced in 1998 by "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." star Ming-Na Wen.
Though Disney has not yet announced a director for the 2018 film, THR reports that "Jurassic World" screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver are currently working on the script; Jason Reed, Chris Bender, and Jake Weiner are reportedly attached to the project as producers.
The release date news comes more than a year after Disney first announced it was developing the project, which also prompted the creation of an online petition to ask studio executives to not "whitewash" the film.
The petition has more than 100,000 signatures, and gained new momentum last month after Deadline reported that Sony was also working on its own live-action "Mulan" project. According to Sony Pictures executive Doug Belgrad, the film would "shoot predominantly or exclusively in China with a Chinese partner and a mostly Chinese cast."
Concerns about Hollywood "whitewashing" have grown in 2016 following the castings of actresses Scarlett Johansson and Tilda Swinton in roles originally written as Asian characters, and the release of a trailer for "The Great Wall" starring Matt Damon as the protagonist.
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