Robert Redford to headline “Pete's Dragon” Disney classic remake

PanARMENIAN.Net - Robert Redford is in negotiations to headline Disney's “Pete's Dragon” remake, TheWrap said citing an individual with knowledge of the project.

As TheWrap was the first to report, “Ain't Them Bodies Saints” director David Lowery is directing the film he was first hired to co-write.

The original 1977 film featured an animated dragon interacting with a live-action cast including Mickey Rooney, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons and Sean Marshall, who played an orphan fleeing his abusive adoptive parents.

Lowery and Toby Halbrooks wrote the script, which reinvents the core of the original family film, which is not expected to be a musical this time around. The story follows a young boy, Pete (Oakes Fegley), whose parents are dead. He is subsequently raised by the titular dragon in a forest that's being threatened by loggers.

Redford is eyeing the role of a local man in the logging community who tells tales of dragons.

The actor is currently playing Dan Rather in “Truth,” about the CBS News anchor's downfall, and was last seen in Marvel's “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”