You can currently see Tessa Thompson on-screen in Boots Riley’s trippy, Sorry to Bother You, and she’ll be reprising her role as Michael B. Jordan’s singer girlfriend in the sequel to Creed this fall, but our fave’s next gig is one you won’t quite be able to watch her perform.
As Disney attempts to turn every one of their animated features into a live-action film, it stands to reason they’d hit Lady and the Tramp, the story of two dogs from wrong sides of the track who fall in love. Thompson has been announced to voice the female lead of the feature, playing the posh Cocker Spaniel, Lady. She’ll join the already announced Justin Theroux, who will voice the Tramp, and Kiersey Clemons who plays Lady’s owner, Darling. The feature is being called a live-action/CGI hybrid, much in the vein of previous remakes Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book.
This is Disney’s first major feature for their upcoming streaming service that will launch sometime next year. The idea of turning Lady and the Tramp into a live-action feature has weird possibilities. Disney’s work with CGI of late has yielded some beautiful photorealistic images like Christopher Robin, as well as weird turns like Beauty and the Beast. Unfortunately Thompson’s casting has been met with racism, as social media trolls criticize Thompson’s character (….even though dogs are a race-less species).
Thompson is always a welcome addition to any feature and we’re looking forward to seeing how her voice comes off on-screen. Either way she leads a cast that’s fairly stacked with talent, making this one of the higher profile projects for a streaming site. Between this and her upcoming role in the new Men in Black spin-off, the summer of Tessa Thompson looks to continue into next year.
Lady and the Tramp arrives on Disney’s streaming service sometime in 2019.