Caitríona Balfe Cast as Queen Arianna in Disney's Live-Action Tangled
Caitríona Balfe is joining Disney's live-action Tangled as Queen Arianna, the studio confirmed on 16 August 2026 (Deadline).
Balfe is a five-time Golden Globe nominee best known for playing Claire Fraser across seven seasons of the historical drama series Outlander. Queen Arianna, in the original 2010 animated film, is Rapunzel's mother — the queen of the kingdom of Corona, whose pregnancy drives the opening of the story.
The live-action adaptation has been filling out its principal cast over recent months. Teagan Croft, who appeared as Raven in the DC series Titans, plays Rapunzel. Milo Manheim, from Disney's Zombies franchise, takes on Flynn Rider — the roguish thief voiced by Zachary Levi in the original. Kathryn Hahn, fresh off her own Marvel series Agatha All Along, plays Mother Gothel, the woman who kidnaps Rapunzel and keeps her locked in a tower. Mandy Moore voiced Rapunzel in the 2010 animated original (Deadline).
Michael Gracey is directing. Gracey previously directed The Greatest Showman, the 2017 musical starring Hugh Jackman that grossed $435 million worldwide. The script comes from Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who co-wrote the 2023 blockbuster Barbie, and Michael Montemayor (Deadline).
Disney used its D23 fan event — the company's biennial showcase of upcoming film and television projects — to announce a release date of 31 March 2028. The studio also teased first-look footage featuring Croft and Hahn. Balfe did not appear in the footage shown at the panel (Deadline).
Earlier in August, set videos from the production surfaced online, reportedly showing actors Patrick and Hugo McPherson on set (Screen Rant). As of 1 August, Balfe and Disney had not yet officially confirmed her casting; that confirmation came in the 16 August report.
Tangled, released in November 2010, was Disney's 50th animated feature. It earned $592 million at the global box office and has remained a fixture of the studio's streaming catalogue ever since. The live-action remake follows Disney's long-running strategy of reimagining its animated classics with flesh-and-blood casts — a formula that has produced some of the highest-grossing films in the studio's history, including the 2019 The Lion King, which took $1.66 billion worldwide.
The March 2028 corridor places Tangled squarely in the spring-break window that Disney has used before, slotting the film into a release schedule the studio has now claimed well in advance.
