Disney’s ‘Cinderella’ Casts Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett is in negotiations to play the evil stepmother in Disney’s live-action Cinderella remake, The Hollywood Reporter confirms.

Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go) will direct the reimagining of the classic fairy tale from a screenplay by Chris Weitz (A Better Life, About a Boy). Simon Kinberg (X-Men trilogy, Elysium) is producing.

STORY: Chris Weitz Joins Disney’s Live-Action ‘Cinderella’ Remake

The Cinderella project was first set up at Disney in May 2010 in the wake of the studio’s success with Alice in Wonderland, the live-action adaptation of the Lewis C. Carroll book that starred Johnny Depp.

Devil Wears Prada writer Aline Brosh McKenna wrote the initial draft of the script.

Blanchett was once set to play the evil witch in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven but that project fell apart.

The Australian actress next appears in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, in theaters Dec. 14. She also has two Terrence Malick films and a Woody Allen project in the pipeline, and recently joined the star-studded cast of George Clooney’s The Monuments Men.