Anne Hathaway Is Bringing ‘Ella Enchanted’ to Disney+

Anne Hathaway is heading back to the fairy tale that first made her a household name. The Oscar winner is executive producing a new Ella Enchanted series in development at Disney+, based on the beloved 2004 Miramax film in which she starred as the title character. Deadline broke the news exclusively, and the project already has a serious creative team behind it.

Ilana Wolpert — who co-wrote the hit rom-com Anyone But You and got her start on Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series — is writing the script. Beth Schwartz, who served as executive producer and showrunner on Netflix’s Sweet Tooth and Dead Boy Detectives, is on board as showrunner. Both are also executive producing alongside Hathaway, Jonathan Rice, and Adam Shulman via Somewhere Pictures, as well as iGen Studios, the company behind Netflix’s popular YA series My Life with the Walter Boys.

A Familiar Story, Reimagined

The series keeps the core premise of both the film and Gail Carson Levine’s original novel — 16-year-old Ella of Frell is cursed at birth with the “gift” of absolute obedience, forced to comply with any command given to her. But where the film leaned into Cinderella-style romantic fantasy, the Disney+ version is going somewhere different.

When Ella is sent to boarding school after her mother’s untimely death, she starts uncovering the truth about her curse, builds an unlikely found family, and navigates an extremely inconvenient crush on the prince of her kingdom. Think less glass slipper, more coming-of-age drama with a fantasy edge. The comparison that’s already being made in development circles? Wednesday‘s fresh take on the Addams Family — a classic IP reframed through a school setting with a darker, sharper tone.

The boarding school element is actually faithful to Levine’s book, even though it never made it into the 2004 movie. Four chapters of the novel follow Ella at a finishing school for girls, where she’s mercilessly bullied but also finds a best friend. That’s the emotional backbone the new series is building on.

Anne Hathaway’s Disney Moment

It’s genuinely hard to overstate how much of a Disney resurgence Hathaway is having right now. She launched her career with the studio as a teenager — first with The Other Side of Heaven, then with The Princess Diaries, which became a global phenomenon. Now, more than two decades later, she’s practically the face of the studio’s current era.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, in which she reprised her role as Andy Sachs alongside Meryl Streep, opened on May 1 and exceeded every expectation — debuting at number one at the global box office with $233.6 million worldwide and helping Disney become the first studio to cross $2 billion globally in 2026. She’s also set to return as Mia Thermopolis in the long-awaited Princess Diaries 3.

Hathaway herself addressed the full-circle moment when she opened Disney’s upfront presentation last week, introducing new CEO Josh D’Amaro. “Like so many of you, I was introduced to Disney as a child, learning how to dream and tell stories,” she said. “Playing Mia in Princess Diaries became this magical portal that opened up my whole life and now with the Devil Wears Prada franchise; these two films that have shaped my career the most are at the same wonderful home, and I am so honored to be a part of the family.”

And the Disney projects aren’t the only things keeping her busy. Hathaway is currently starring in A24’s Mother Mary, where she plays a pop star, and has three more films on the way this year: The Odyssey, The End of Oak Street, and Verity.

The Miramax Connection

The co-production setup here is worth paying attention to. Miramax is now 49% owned by Paramount, and the two companies have been actively mining the Miramax library under new CEO Jonathan Glickman. Ella Enchanted is the second major series adaptation Miramax Television and Paramount TV Studios have developed together — the first being Cop Land, from the film’s director James Mangold. The original 2004 movie already had Disney ties, having been made when Miramax was still part of the Disney empire, with Buena Vista International handling international distribution.

The series is still in early development, so there’s no cast announcement or premiere window yet. But with Hathaway’s name attached, a creative team with real YA and fantasy credentials, and Disney clearly invested in the project, Ella Enchanted fans have every reason to be paying attention.