A 'West Side Story' star signs on for Apple TV+ animated movie 'Spellbound'

Apple TV+
Apple TV+ (Image credit: Bryan M. Wolfe / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple TV+ has signed Rachel Zegler to voice the main character in Spellbound.
  • Spellbound is an animated movie from Apple Original Movies and Skydance Animation.

Apple TV+ has reportedly signed West Side Story star Rachel Zegler to be the voice of Princess Ellian in the animated movie Spellbound.

Zegler will voice the lead character for the new movie, writes Deadline, a musical feature that will be directed by Vicky Jenson.

Vicky Jenson is directing the pic with Lauren Hynek & Elizabeth Martin and Linda Woolverton penning the script. The original score for the film hails from Academy Award-winner Alan Menken, with lyrics by Glenn Slater. Chris Montan serves as executive music producer. John Lasseter, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and David Lipman are producing for Skydance Animation.

As for the role itself, Ellian is a "tenacious princess" who sets off on a quest to "save her family and "kingdom after a mysterious spell transforms her parents into monsters and threatens to cover Lumbria in darkness forever."

The new movie will join a growing collection of Apple TV+ movies and TV shows that are aimed at families and children. The movie is also being made with Skydance Animation, following on from Blush, a previous movie from the paring with Apple Original Movies.

While Apple TV+ hasn't yet said when Spellbound will be available to stream, it was one of the many movies and TV shows highlighted in a recent "2022 and beyond" preview shared by the streamer.

We might not know when Spellbound will stream, but we do know that you'll need a $4.99 per month subscription to watch it. Apple TV+ is also available as part of the Apple One subscription bundle, too.

While Apple TV+ can be watched on almost anything at this point, those looking to get the best experience should probably check out our collection of the best Apple TV deals on the market today. The Apple TV hardware can also stream all of your favorite content from Netflix, Disney+, and more.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.