Disney has announced yet another assault on the ears and sanity of the modern parent, with news coming at the company’s D23 Expo that Frozen songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez are teaming up with Tangled director Nathan Greno for a new animated feature based on the old Jack and the Beanstalk story. Announced by chief creative officer John Lasseter, the movie—titled Gigantic— sounds like something that could have come from his old colleagues at Pixar, with treasure hunter Jack teaming up with and/or falling into the clutches of an 11-year-old giant girl named Inma, who treats him like a living doll.
It’s not clear if Gigantic is an outgrowth of the Jack and the Beanstalk movie the company was reported to be developing with Vince Gilligan back in April; at the time, that movie was being called Beanstalk, and was described as a “revisionist take” on the story. It’s possible that Disney is just doubling down on America’s current beanstalk-positive zeitgeist and developing two different movies based on the old story, since spending a lot of time and money on JATB-based projects has always been a proven money-making strategy in the past.
Greno, producer Dorothy McKim, and Lopez and Anderson-Lopez all took the stage at D23 to talk about the film, with the songwriting duo busting out a few lines of whatever song they’ve written to torment weary parents for the rest of their lives. At least those sleep-deprived paternal and maternal zombies can console themselves with the knowledge that there’s still a few years between now and 2018, when this catchy new hell will be unleashed upon the earth.