Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Of course Disney was going to kick around the idea of a Little Mermaid live-action retelling. All their live-action versions of their classic animated features so far have made a ridiculous amount of money and the recently released Beauty and the Beast teaser trailer out-clicked the trailer for The Force Awakens.
Beauty and the Beast is perfectly aged to make all the money. My generation is in prime (young and vibrant) parent age right now, so the draw to take the kiddos to see updated versions of the films that had such an impact on our childhoods is damn near irresistable.
Beauty and the Beast could very well be the crown jewel of the rebirth of Disney animated magic, but all that was kicked off by The Little Mermaid. Up until then, the animation studio was floundering (pardon the pun). Listen, I adore The Black Cauldron, but the studio was clearly lost in the woods until The Little Mermaid got them back on track.
Deadline says Disney's now seriously "kicking around" the idea of doing a live action Little Mermaid, which is a no-brainer. The only thing is unlike with The Jungle Book there's very little chance they're going to beat out the competing project in the works (in this case it's a Universal adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's original story, which has Chloe Grace Moretz cast as the lead and a script by Richard Curtis).
But what Disney has on their side is the quite considerable nostalgia card. They can use imagery and the flat out fantastic Alan Menkin/Howard Ashman music, which as Jungle Book and now the Beauty and the Beast trailer have shown is quite the draw. Every audience I saw Jungle Book with went nuts when the songs kicked up, especially King Louie's number.
I expect Beauty and the Beast to go even further with the live action movie musical thing and if they pull the trigger on The Little Mermaid I'd be that follows suit.
My only request is that they make Ursula as pants-crappingly scary in live action as she is in the cartoon. I mean, have you ever been on the Little Mermaid ride at California Adventure? She's goddamn terrifying realized in our actual world.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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