American film by Rob Marshall
The Little Mermaid is a 2023 American musical fantasy film that is a live-action adaptation of Disney's 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid, which itself is loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 fairy tale, produced by Walt Disney Pictures, DeLuca Marshall, and Marc Platt Productions. Directed by Rob Marshall from a screenplay by David Magee, the film stars Halle Bailey as the title character, with Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay, Noma Dumezweni, Art Malik, Javier Bardem, and Melissa McCarthy in supporting roles. The plot follows the mermaid princess Ariel, who is fascinated with the human world; after saving Prince Eric from a shipwreck, she makes a deal with the sea witch Ursula to walk on land.
Plans for a remake of 1989's The Little Mermaid were confirmed in May 2016. In December 2017, Disney announced Marshall was being courted to direct the film. Bailey, Hauer-King, McCarthy, Bardem, Diggs, Tremblay, Awkwafina, and the rest of the cast joined between July and November 2019. Production was expected to begin in London between late March and early April 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, before ultimately took place from January to July 2021, primarily at Pinewood Studios in England and on the island of Sardinia, Italy. Composer Alan Menken returned to augment the score and write new songs alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda, who serves as a producer with Platt, John DeLuca, and Marshall. The film is dedicated to the late Howard Ashman, who co-produced and co-wrote the songs from the original film.
The Little Mermaid premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on May 8, 2023, and was released in the United States on May 26 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office, grossing $569.6 million worldwide against its production budget of $240.2 million, becoming Disney's twenty-third most expensive film production to date. Estimates on the film’s financial performance calculate a $5 million dollar loss for Disney as a result of the inflated budget, marketing costs, and the portions of funds that theaters keep for themselves in ticket sales.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.