Misty Copeland Joining Disney's Live-Action 'Nutcracker' Movie

Mark Gordon will produce the project, which is based on Peter Tchaikovsky's classic ballet.

Misty Copeland is joining Disney's Nutcracker movie.

The ballerina made the announcement on her Instagram, writing, "I’m thrilled to be a part of this amazing project with Disney and the wonderful Lasse Hallstrom."

Copeland will play the lead ballerina role in the sole dance sequence in the film, titled The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which will mark the dancer's first big leap into narrative moviemaking.

Based on Peter Tchaikovsky's ballet and the accompanying story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, Disney's live-action adaptation will be directed by Hallstrom from a script written by Ashleigh Powell.

The Nutcracker follows Clara, a young girl who at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve finds herself thrust into a fantastical world, into the middle of a war between gingerbread soldiers and an army of mice.

Mark Gordon is producing the film, with Lindy Goldstein acting as executive producer. Sam Dickerman and Allison Erlikhman are overseeing the project for Disney, while Sara Smith is overseeing for The Mark Gordon Company.

Copeland made history when she became the first African-American woman to be promoted to principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater. She was the subject of the 2015 documentary A Ballerina's Tale, and her memoir, Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, about her time as a young ballet prodigy was acquired by New Line with Remember the Titans scribe Gregory Allen writing the adaptation.

She is repped by Paradigm, Square Media and Del Shaw.