The Little Prince returns in live action with Tyldum directing and Beaufoy writing
The Little Prince is heading back to cinemas as a live-action feature built around both the book and the writer behind it. Morten Tyldum is set to direct, with Simon Beaufoy writing the script. Details of the project were reported by Variety on 29 September 2026.
Tyldum directed The Imitation Game. Beaufoy won an Oscar for writing Slumdog Millionaire. Their new film will weave together two strands. One follows French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a pioneering pilot as well as a writer. The other enters the fantastical world of The Little Prince.
The two strands will look different on screen. Saint-Exupéry's story will unfold in live action, meaning it is shot with real actors and physical sets. The Little Prince will be created using visual effects, meaning a computer-built character placed inside that filmed world. The production plans to hold the author's life in the real and the Prince in the imagined.
The film hails from French producer Aton Soumache. Soumache previously produced Mark Osborne's 2015 animated feature The Little Prince. He is producing the new film with Paul Trijbits through their company Magical Society. The project is being developed with Le Petit Prince Groupe, the organisation that guards the Saint-Exupéry estate, led by chief executive Sophie Kopaczynski.
The script will also pull from Joann Sfar's graphic adaptation of the book. That version centres on the bond between the Little Prince and the Aviator. That relationship is the bridge the new film plans to use between fact and fable.
First published in 1943, The Little Prince has sold more than 200 million copies worldwide. It has been translated into some 600 languages and dialects, according to Variety. Those figures make it one of the most widely read and translated books ever published.
What makes this stand out is the pairing. The film treats Saint-Exupéry and his creation as two halves of one story. For viewers, this means a version that explains where the tale came from as well as retelling it.
