Dan Trachtenberg, who breathed new life into the Predator franchise with Prey and Badlands, is set to wake up Sleeping Beauty for Disney. Here’s an odd juxtaposition. Director Dan Trachtenberg, better known for his sci-fi action thrillers, is turning to Disney princesses with a new take on Sleeping Beauty. Having made the tense spin-off 10 ... Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg to make new Sleeping Beauty for Disney
Dan Trachtenberg, who breathed new life into the Predator franchise with Prey and Badlands, is set to wake up Sleeping Beauty for Disney.
Here’s an odd juxtaposition. Director Dan Trachtenberg, better known for his sci-fi action thrillers, is turning to Disney princesses with a new take on Sleeping Beauty.
Having made the tense spin-off 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016, Trachtenberg revived the faltering Predator franchise with Prey, before expanding the franchise further with last year’s Predator: Badlands and animated Disney+ feature, Predator: Killer Of Killers.
Although he also has other projects on the go (more on those shortly), Trachtenberg has also signed on to direct a new take on a familiar fairytale. Disney’s animated Sleeping Beauty debuted in 1959, and after initially faltering at the box office, grew into a much-loved Mouse House stable on subsequent re-releases; it even received a pair of live-action adaptations in the 2010s – Maleficent (2014) and Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil (2019), both starring Angelina Jolie.
According to Deadline, Trachtenberg’s film will be unrelated to those villain-centric Jolie movies. Instead, it will “take the story in an entirely new direction with Trachtenberg’s sensibility,” with the filmmaker having come up with the story in conjunction with Rayna McClendon, who was previously a writer on the 2022 Willow TV series, which has since mysteriously disappeared from Disney’s streaming platform.
Their story will be turned into a script by Alex Anfanger and Dan Schimpf, who previously worked together on the dark comedy Big Time In Hollywood, FL. No, we hadn’t heard of it, either, but the 2014 show had a great cast according to the Wikipedia page we just found: Cuba Gooding Jr, Keith David, Michael Madsen, Stephen Tobolowsky and Paz Vega. Blimey.
Having made three very good Predator movies in succession, Trachtenberg has found himself rather busy. He signed a three-year deal with Paramount in February 2026, taking him back to the studio that distributed his debut, 10 Cloverfield Lane. To date, it hasn’t been revealed what he’ll make over there, though it’s thought it’ll be one of the big franchises Paramount plans to dust off – Mission: Impossible, perhaps, or maybe Transformers or Star Trek.
This doesn’t mean that Trachtenberg has finished with the Predator franchise yet; after the Paramount deal was signed, he said that he was still “figuring out the next steps” for another Yautja-based movie, but admitted that it might be some way off.
Now Trachtenberg has another, rather different revival going on at Disney. Maybe it’ll still have a Predator in it?
We’ll keep you posted as we hear more.
