{"id":494362,"date":"2026-03-25T11:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494362\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T11:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:20:11","slug":"akiva-schaffer-to-direct-cinderella-spin-off-stepsisters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494362\/","title":{"rendered":"Akiva Schaffer To Direct Cinderella Spin-Off ‘Stepsisters’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ordinarily, news of a spin-off movie from a live-action Disney remake wouldn’t exactly be the hottest news in town (no offence Gaston<\/a>.) However, news of a spin-off movie from a live-action Disney remake being directed by one third of The Lonely Island and co-written by three thirds of last year’s positively hilarious The Naked Gun<\/a> reboot… well that’s something to shout about. Deadline<\/a> is reporting that Akiva Schaffer is reteaming with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand to tackle Stepsisters, a movie which will \u2014 you guessed it! \u2014 give Cinderella<\/a>‘s hissable twosome Anastasia and Drisella the spotlight in their own feature film.<\/p>\n

Now, technically speaking, it’s unclear whether Stepsisters is a spin-off of Kenneth Branagh’s Lily James and Richard Madden starring 2015 movie (in which Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger played Drisella and Anastasia), or if it’s a live-action movie directly spinning off from the OG 1950 Disney animation<\/a>. Regardless, we do know that Schaffer, Gregor, and Mand \u2014 who’ve previously delivered the goods for Disney with 2022’s underrated, lol-filled Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers<\/a> \u2014 are retooling this take on Cinderella’s spiteful siblings from an original script by Tangled<\/a> scribe Michael Montemayor. We also know, in news that will come as a surprise to approximately nobody, that this isn’t about to be some gritty, horror-inflected pivot from Disney (for a horrifying ugly stepsister tale, give Oscar nominated Norwegian body horror The Ugly Stepsister a try): this is very much a firmly comedic take on Drisella and Anastasia.<\/p>\n

The prospect of an Akiva Schaffer helmed riff on Cinderella’s dreadful side-villains is undoubtedly an exciting one, and fits with where the House of Mouse’s energy is being focused just now. Stepsisters joins a pipeline that already includes a Moana live-action remake<\/a>, the aforementioned Gaston movie, a live-action Tangled retooling<\/a>, a non-animated Lilo & Stitch 2<\/a>, and a Paul King Prince Charming<\/a> joint. Here’s hoping these movies and the serious bank they will surely make might also help fund more original movies too as new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro sets out his vision for the company\u2019s future. Every day\u2019s Christmas Eve, folks!<\/p>\n

Want to make sure you never miss out on the latest movie and TV news, reviews, and Empire exclusives again?\u00a0Click here<\/a>\u00a0to add Empire as your go-to source on Google Feed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ordinarily, news of a spin-off movie from a live-action Disney remake wouldn’t exactly be the hottest news in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-494362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}