Disney and Misty Copeland…What could be better??!!

This just in…via Deadline.com

Ballet star Misty Copeland just unveiled that she is joining the cast of Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, the Lasse Hallstrom-directed pic based on the famed story. The live-action pic is being penned by Ashleigh Powell. Copeland will play the lead ballerina role in the film’s sole dance sequence.

She tipped the news via Instagram:

Disney in March set Hallstrom to direct the pic, based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s Christmas Eve tale about a young girl who finds a Nutcracker doll among the family’s gifts and is charged by her parents to take special care of it. Under the cover of darkness, the Nutcracker comes to life, along with an evil Mouse King with seven heads, introducing Marie to the magical world of toys and the brave Nutcracker who will change her life forever.

Mark Gordon is producing, and Lindy Goldstein is executive producing. Sam Dickerman and Allison Erlikhman are overseeing the project for Disney and Sara Smith is overseeing for the Mark Gordon Company.

In May, Deadline scooped that New Line has acquired Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, a book that will serve as a Copeland biopic. Gregory Allen Howard is penning that script, which will center on Copeland making history by becoming the first African-American woman to be promoted to principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre.