Lin-Manuel Miranda In Talks With Disney To Make Animated Film With A ‘Latina Princess’

Carlos Giusti/AP/Shutterstock

Wait, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s supposedly making a follow-up to ‘Moana?’ And the animated film is going to be about a Latina princess? If so, then the ‘Hamilton’ creator has a good reason to say, ‘You’re Welcome.’

That was a Moana soundtrack reference, btw. For those of you who have just now gotten Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s catchy “You’re Welcome” song out of your head comes this good news: Lin-Manuel Miranda, 39, the music co-writer on Moana, is working on a follow-up. His father, Luis, spilled the tea to Page Six, giving Hamilton and Disney stans a reason to be hyped.  “He is talking to Disney about a sequel to Moana, but the movie would be about a Latina princess.” HollywoodLife.com has reached out to a Disney rep for any information about this and will update the post if we hear back.

This is incredible! Lin-Manuel writing a film with a Latina princess? Amazing. While some publications have dubbed this hypothetical heroine the “first” Latina Disney princess, the more accurate title would be “first Latina princess in a Disney feature-length film.” The company actually introduced Princess Elena back in 2016, rolling out the animated television series Elena of Avalor. Princess Elena Castillo Flores was voiced by Aimee Carrero, 30, a Dominican-American actress (who is currently voicing She-Ra in Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.)

“[Princess Elena is] still underage so she’s not yet ready to rule and so, she just has the challenge of taking care of her family and this huge kingdom and have this awesome responsibility,” Aimee said in 2016, according to ABC News. With Aimee’s mother being of Dominican descent and her father being Puerto Rican, it meant “absolutely everything” for her to play Disney’s first Latina princess. “Disney’s been in my family for a very long time and just to see my own images represented, my own culture represented, is really special and I hope it will be for everybody watching.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda won a Grammy for his work on Moana, winning “Best Song Written For Visual Media” for “How Far I’ll Go.” Both the Golden Globes and Academy Awards nominated the track for Best Song, but it fell to La La Land’s “City of Stars.” Currently, he’s starring in a limited run of Hamilton in Puerto Rico to raise funds for his hurricane-ravaged homeland. So, any work on this rumored film would have wait until he’s done with that.

Disney, in a step towards inclusion, will reportedly include an openly gay character in its upcoming Jungle Cruise movie, slated for an October 2019 release, per Daily Beast. British comedian Jack Whitehall will play the character, and though some have welcomed the greater representation of LGBT people in its films, some have criticized Disney for not having an actual gay actor play the part.