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It’s been 33 years since Ariel first captivated audiences as she learned to be a part of our world. In 2023, Disney will give The Little Mermaid a live-action reboot, and there have been plenty of updates about the live-action Little Mermaid to get people excited. The Little Mermaid will be a live-action movie like Mulan, The Jungle Book, Aladdin, and the remake of Beauty and the Beast from 2017. It will keep most of the original songs and carry on the spirit of the original The Little Mermaid, but with a (sometimes controversial) update for modern audiences and a visual spectacle that could only be made possible by mixing live-action and CGI.
In 1989, Disney’s version of the story hit the big screen. It’s about a mermaid princess named Ariel who falls in love with a human and the world he lives in. She gives up her voice and turns into a person so she can be with him. The Little Mermaid was a big hit when it came out, and it’s still a favorite Disney film, so it’s not surprising that it got a live-action remake so quickly. The cast of the 2023 remake of The Little Mermaid has sparked much talk, as have the trailers and many sneak peeks of the songs that made the 1989 version so popular. Here are all the updates and news about the live-action version of The Little Mermaid so far before it comes out in May 2023.
Cast
- Halle Bailey as Ariel
- Jonah Hauer-King as Eric
- Melissa McCarthy as Ursula
- Javier Bardem as King Triton
- Noma Dumezweni as The Queen
- Art Malik as Sir Grimsby
- Jessica Alexander as Vanessa
- Martina Laird as Lashana
- Emily Coates as Rosa
- John Dagleish as Mulligan
The Little Mermaid 2023 Remake Release Date
The latest news about the live-action version of Little Mermaid showed that it will come out on May 26, 2023. The live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” finished filming in July 2021, leading many people to think it might come out in the middle of 2022. But Disney has now said when the movie will come out, so that prediction was wrong. With the extra time, the visual effects team has made Ariel’s home look even better underwater.
Studios have said that the remake will be shown in theaters, but it’s unclear when it will be available on Disney+. Lately, Disney movies like the sequel to Enchanted, Disenchanted have only been available on Disney+ and not in theaters. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was one of the movies that went to theaters and then came to Disney+ about three months later.
The Little Mermaid Live-Action Remake Trailer
On September 9, 2022, the official teaser for the remake of The Little Mermaid came out. The teaser shows Ariel, played by Halle Bailey, swimming through her magical cove and singing the famous song “Part of Your World.” People also get to see Flounder swimming next to her. Other well-known characters, like Scuttle, Sebastian, and Ursula, didn’t show up in live-action until March 2023, when the full-length trailer came out. The full-length trailer for The Little Mermaid has given fans a better look at the world Disney made under the sea for the new version. You can see Ariel saving Eric, singing “Under the Sea,” and making a deal with Ursula, all of which were essential parts of the animated movie.
Even though the TV spots for The Little Mermaid made people more interested in the project, the full-length trailer for the live-action version shows that Disney has kept its touch. But Disney has also put out more teaser ads and started to release songs from the movie’s soundtrack. Since the music has been used since the first teaser for the film, Halle Bailey’s version of “Part of Your World” is one of the most anticipated. Fans can also get a clear look at characters like Flounder, Sebastian, and Ursula from a new set of character posters for the movie. Also, King Triton, Prince Eric, and Scuttle have new looks.
A new clip was also made based on the live-action changes to The Little Mermaid. In the new movie, Ursula deals with a young Ariel to turn her into a human. This clip shows that famous scene. The actress who plays Ursula, Melissa McCarthy, posted the clip herself. In the original animated movie, Ursula agrees to make Ariel human for three days, but she has to get a kiss from Prince Eric or she will turn back into a mermaid and end up in Ursula’s hands.
The Live-Action Little Mermaid Plot
The live-action Little Mermaid updates say that the story is about Halle Bailey’s Princess Ariel, who wants to see the human world and falls in love with a prince, leading her to make a dangerous deal with Ursula. The sea witch tricks the young princess so that Eric can’t kiss her, and she becomes her slave. But love always wins, just like in every other Disney classic, and Prince Eric and Ariel live happily ever after.
Even though most of the story will stay the same, Ariel and Eric’s relationship develops more. The two are instantly drawn to each other in the animated movie, but they will find things they have in common in the live-action movie. Eric, like Ariel, finds himself feeling like an outsider in his world as well. The Little Mermaid should be updated so that Ariel explores her freedom and doesn’t just try to find a prince.
Fans of the original movie didn’t like some of these changes. However, original Ariel voice actor Jodi Benson has responded to the criticism in recent updates to the live-action Little Mermaid. Benson said, “It’s very important to stay in touch with where we are and what’s happening around us. We need to pay attention. So the changes and fine-tuning they had to make were necessary, but they did it beautifully, and I’m very happy with it.”
The live-action version of The Little Mermaid will also be longer than the animated version. The live-action version of The Little Mermaid is 2 hours and 15 minutes long, while the animated version is only 83 minutes long. That’s almost an hour longer than the original movie. However, it’s likely because of longer credit sequences, more musical numbers, and a few extra scenes to tell more about the characters’ pasts, just like other live-action Disney movies have done.
The movie will be based on a musical, like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, but it will also have new songs. Lin Manuel-Miranda helped the movie with its music. He worked with Alan Menken, who wrote the original music, to help write four new songs for it. The story will also change for more than just Ariel and Eric. Alan Menken says that some of the old songs will be updated for modern audiences by making small changes to the lyrics. For example, Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls” and Sebastian’s “Kiss the Girl” will change some lines to make them less offensive to modern audiences.
Fans of the original 1989 movie haven’t been happy with other news and updates about the live-action Little Mermaid, mainly because of the changes being made for the 2023 remake. This means the song “Daughters of Triton” will not be in the new movie. The song that Ariel’s sisters sing to introduce themselves and the missing Ariel will not be in the live-action version of The Little Mermaid, much to the anger of King Triton and Sebastian. Alan Menken, who wrote the song, said it didn’t fit with the live-action movie when asked why it was taken out. “We didn’t think it was important in this version. And we definitely wanted the movie to start with Ariel meeting the sea in a more real-life way.
Triton’s costume was also changed, according to one of the many updates to the live-action Little Mermaid. In the new movie, Javier Bardem plays King Triton. He talked about why this change was made in the movie. Triton’s new look in the new live-action version of The Little Mermaid has been changed by putting armor over his chest. This is not the case in the animated movie, where he is shirtless. “That would have been hard to do. Also, it’s not because I didn’t want to,” Bardem said. “It’s just that having someone like that around always is very distracting. It makes sense that he has a big, beautiful shell around him.”
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