Yara Shahidi to play Tinkerbell in Disney’s live-action Peter Pan film

The cast for Disney’s PETER PAN AND WENDY has slowly been coming together over the past few months, and Deadline has reported that Yara Shahidi has signed on to appear in the studio’s latest live-action flick as Tinkerbell, a diminutive fairy who is one of Peter Pan’s closest friends.

Yara Shahidi is best known for her break-out role as Zoey on Black-ish; in fact, her character become so popular that she’s leading Grown-ish, a spin-off series chronicling Zoey’s college years. PETER PAN AND WENDY is slated to star Alexander Molony and Ever Anderson as Peter Pan and Wendy, respectively, with Jude Law set to play Captain Hook. David Lowery (PETE’S DRAGON) is directing the film as well as co-writing the script with Toby Halbrooks. It’s not clear when production will kick off for the film, but sources have said that it’s destined for a theatrical release and not the Disney+ streaming service.

PETER PAN AND WENDY is just the latest of Disney’s onslaught of live-action adaptations of their animated classics, the most recent of which was MULAN.  The adaptation follows Mulan (Liu Yifei) as she takes her father’s place in battle when the Imperial Army is summoned by the emperor (Jet Li) to fight the forces of an evil warlord (Jason Scott Lee). The film was slated to hit theaters earlier this year, but COVID-19 forced Disney to delay the film before they ultimately decided to debut it on Disney+ (for an additional price.) You can check out a review from our own Chris Bumbray right here.