Disney Plans Live-Action ‘Dumbo’ Remake with ‘Transformers’ Writer [UPDATED]

Disney is developing a live-action feature based on the 1941 animated film Dumbo. Ehren Kruger, who has written or co-written three of the four Michael Bay Transformers films, will write the script. Kruger’s story will add a “unique family story that parallels Dumbo’s story,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Disney developed an animated Dumbo 2 in the mid-2000s through their DisneyToons branch. The project was cancelled after the Disney/Pixar merger in 2006, at the urging of John Lasseter, who considers the original his favorite animated feature of all-time. Lasseter once told the NY Times:

Hands down. Dumbo is my favorite film for many reasons. It’s very tight storytelling. It’s amazing to have a main character not speak at all through the whole movie. It is the most cartoony of all the Walt Disney features, and I love the style of it. The music, the characters, it’s just fantastic. It’s just over 60 minutes long. It’s a very well told story. And it’s so emotional too, especially for parents. It’s really amazing.

Something tells me he won’t have the same luck stopping this latest attempt to recycle Dumbo.

UPDATE: Last March, illustrator Larry T. Quach made an illustraton for his own amusement that explored the concept of a more realistic Dumbo. Little did he know…