Disney Turns to Medusa for Its Next Villain Reimagining

Disney is developing an original live-action film about Medusa, with Tangled screenwriter Michael Montemayor writing the first draft and Dwayne Johnson producing through Seven Bucks Productions, according to Deadline. The project will put the snake-haired figure from Greek mythology at the center of her own story. Deadline reports that Montemayor’s script will offer a new take on the myth, but plot details haven’t been released. That leaves open how Disney will portray a figure usually presented as a deadly threat. Films such as Malefacent and Cruella have already given familiar villains stories built around their own experiences. A sympathetic treatment of Medusa would follow that approach, though nothing announced so far confirms that direction. The source material offers different starting points. In the early Greek tradition, Medusa was born a monstrous Gorgon. A later Roman version describes her as a beautiful mortal cursed by Athena. Both versions give her snakes for hair and a gaze that turns people to stone. Movie audiences have seen Medusa in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and the 1981 and 2010 versions of Clash of the Titans. Disney’s project shift...