Sure, Disney currently has five of the biggest films of 2019 and is set to launch its highly-anticipated streaming service in November, but not all is going smoothly for the Mouse House. According to a new report from Deadline, it would appear that one of the big Disney+ projects that fans were excited about, “Book of Enchantment,” is no more.
The report claims that the series that was in development for Disney+, focusing on the various villains of the classic animated films, based on the series of novels from author Serena Valentino, isn’t moving forward. After 13 weeks of writing on the series, Disney was apparently unhappy with the show’s tone and direction and ultimately pulled the plug on the whole thing.
Michael Seitzman, one of the creative minds behind ABC’s “Quantico,” was aboard as the pilot’s writer, as well as showrunner. The series was said to include characters from Valentino’s “Villains” series such as Ursula, The Beast, and others. “Book of Enchantment” was reportedly going to cost Disney somewhere in the nine-figure range for budget, and the studio had already spent over $4 million on development.
There was no official announcement of the project, but the report says that development had been ongoing for over a year, with scripts being written and production looking at a May 2020 start date in the UK. However, when Disney tried to mix things up and bring in new creative blood, the creative direction of the series still wasn’t to the studio’s liking and the plug was pulled.
Obviously, there’s still plenty of projects coming to Disney+ over the next few years, so it’s unlikely that people will see a big hole in the programming left by “Book of Enchantment.” However, fans of the novels and of the classic Disney animated films are likely going to be bummed by this news.