Disney+ is developing Tink, a live-action drama series based on the Tinker Bell character, according to Deadline.
The project is being written and executive produced by Liz Heldens and Bridget Carpenter and is produced by 20th Television, with Gary Marsh attached as an executive producer, along with Quinn Haberman from Heldens’ production company Selfish Mermaid.
The character of Tinker Bell originated in J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” and appeared in Disney’s 1953 animated film Peter Pan. She has appeared in numerous films and series for decades and remains one of the studio’s most recognizable fantasy figures.
Earlier attempts to develop a live-action project centered on the character date back more than a decade. Variety reported that a version announced in 2010 was planned as a live-action romantic comedy with Elizabeth Banks attached to star, while a separate 2015 feature project was developed with Reese Witherspoon set to play the role. That film project was later reworked after Marsh departed his executive role at Disney Branded Television in 2021 to focus on producing.
More recently, Yara Shahidi portrayed Tinker Bell in the 2023 live-action film Peter Pan & Wendy.
Heldens and Carpenter previously collaborated on the television series Friday Night Lights. Heldens’ credits include creating series such as Mercy, Deception, Camp, The Passage, and The Big Leap, and she currently serves as co-showrunner of ABC’s Will Trent. Carpenter’s television work includes 11.22.63, Only Murders in the Building, Parenthood, Westworld, and The Red Road, in addition to her work as a playwright. (AWN)
Ready to play a game starring Stitch on Disney+? Or maybe create some kind of personalized, AI-animated version of the chaotic but oh-so-adorable alien from “Lilo & Stitch” you can share with your friends?
Disney+, which is in the process of merging with Hulu into a unified platform, is preparing “the biggest and the most significant changes from a product perspective” since the streaming service launched in late 2019, according to CEO Bob Iger, speaking on the media giant’s September quarter earnings call Thursday.
Iger then sketched out Disney+’s future roadmap — which could include games, commerce and AI user generated content. The big vision, he said, “particularly with the deployment of AI,” is to be able to leverage Disney+ “as a portal to all things Disney.”
“There’s an opportunity to use it as an engagement engine for people who want to go to our theme parks, want to stay at our hotels, want to enjoy our cruises, our cruise ships,” said Iger. “And obviously, there’s a huge opportunity for games.” He cited Disney’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games, the company behind “Fortnite,” and while the games and experiences developed under the partnership “will largely be on their platform,” the Epic pact “gives us an opportunity to integrate a number of game-like features into Disney+.”
Iger, on a roll, continued, “The other thing that we’re really excited about that AI is going to give us the ability to do is to provide users at Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user generated content and to consume user generated content, mostly short form from others.”
“There are great opportunities in terms of our collection of data and our mining of data,” Iger told analysts. “And I’d say above all else, there’s phenomenal opportunities to deploy AI across our direct-to-consumer platforms, both to provide tools that make the platforms more dynamic and more sticky with consumers, but also give consumers the opportunity to create on our platforms.”
Needless to say, any AI features the Mouse House lights up on Disney+ would likely be confined within a very strict sandbox. Iger said Disney execs have had “some interesting conversations with some of the AI companies, and I would characterize some of them as quite productive conversations as well, seeking to not only protect the value of our IP and of our creative engines, but also to seek opportunities for us to use their technology to create more engagement with consumers. And we feel encouraged by some of the discussions that we’re having.”
Iger didn’t identify which AI companies Disney has spoken to. But, he said, “It’s obviously imperative for us to protect our IP using with this new technology, and we’ve been pretty engaged on that subject with a number of entities, and I’m hopeful that ultimately we’ll be able to reach some agreement with the industry or companies” that would “reflect our need to protect the IP.”
On that front, this year Disney began actively engaged in legal action against AI companies that it alleges had infringed its copyrights. Disney, together with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery, has sued Midjourney and Chinese AI company MiniMax, seeking to recover monetary damages and injunctions to block the alleged infringement.
Beyond using AI for content production and for features in products like Disney+, the company sees opportunities in terms of increasing efficiency by deploying AI across the enterprise “as we engage with our cast members and our our employees, but also our guests and our customers.” (Variety)
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