The Little Mermaid’s first look teased at D23
Disney has unveiled the first footage from their upcoming live-action “Little Mermaid” remake starring Halle Bailey. She plays the princess’ mermaid mother under the sea, voice of her father and Ariel’s true love.
The Little Mermaid Cast and Production
Director Robert Marshall, of the Academy Award-winning comedy “Chicago” and the Oscar-winning movie “The Lion King,” celebrated the fact that this was a live action musical. He said, “When we started this journey it was very important to honor the original” but also reimagine and “bring some depth” to the new film. The director also asked “Little Mermaid” veteran Disney animator Alan Menken to link up with multi-award winning Lin-Manuel Miranda and together they came up with 4 new songs for the new film. “They’d never collaborated together before, and it’s magical… Somehow we still retain the beauty of Howard Ashman’s Oscar winning score for ‘The Little Mermaid.'”
Bailey came in and claimed the role from Marshall, and quickly debuted footage from “The Little Mermaid” at D23 showing her playing with her voice to perform the iconic “Part of Your World” song. The hall was silent as audience members took in this familiar new rendition of a song they have never heard. A few members of the audience had visible body language showing their emotions at this heart-stopping performance. One of the members shouted, “She’s so good,” while another said, “I got chills.”
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Bailey related to Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” by talking about how she imagined being a mermaid as a girl. She said the day before that it took three days to complete shooting this particular moment from the movie, and she felt powerful when she played Ariel.
Differences include Bailey having longer fins, going from the cone-like shell bra underwater look to a more sophisticated designed.
Adapted from the 1989 film by John Musker and Richard Clements, which was based on the Hans Christian Andersen 19th century fairy tale, “The Little Mermaid” tells the story of Ariel, King Triton’s youngest daughter, who rules the sea kingdom of Atlantic. Ariel falls in love with the handsome Prince Eric as she saves him on a shipwreck and promises to meet him on land. Her quest brings her conflict with her father and also with the scheming sea witch Ursula. The cast has Jake Tremblay, Awkwafina, Daveed Diggs and J.K. Simmons voicing classic Disney chum Flounder, Sebastian and Scuttle.
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A live-action “Little Mermaid” is going to be directed by Marshall, who has directed the musical “Mary Poppins Returns” for Disney before, as well as movie musicals like “Chicago” and “Into the Woods.” David Magee and Jane Goldman wrote the script. Along with Marc Platt and John DeLuca, Miranda and Marshall are producing.
In an interview for Variety’s 2022 Power of Young Hollywood issue, Bailey spoke about her longstanding love for the original film and addressed the racist criticism from trolls on social media. Bailey recalled that she received support from her grandparents who reminded her of the impact a Black princess on the big screen would have had.
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“It was inspiring to hear their words of encouragement, telling me, ‘You don’t understand what this is doing for us because this is impacting our community and all these little Black and brown girls who are going to see themselves in you,’ Bailey said.
The Little Mermaid is coming to theatres on 26th May, 2023.
“The Mandalorian” is gearing up for a new adventure. Disney+ has released the first trailer for Season 3 of the popular “Star Wars” series, and announced that the next season will premiere somewhere in 2023.
Before Lucasfilm unveiled a teaser trailer, Katee Sackhoff said during Disney’s D23 conference that the new season of Star Wars: Rebels is “wild.”
The third season of the show follows up on the events of the original miniseries, “The Book of Boba Fett.” The first miniseries followed Mando as he pursued his mission to regain his honor at the hands of another legendary Mandalorian, Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison). The show also opened up a new world for us: Planet Mandore.
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In addition to Carl Weathers, Pascal, Katee Sackhoff and Giancarlo Esposito are going to reprise their previous “Mandalorian” roles for Season 3. Weathers plays Greef Karga, the bounty hunter and guild leader while Esposito plays Moff Gideon, the primary villain of the series, who is making an effort to take Grogu away from Mando. Katee Sackhoff makes a return from Season 2 as the female Mandalorian trying to retrieve the Darksaber from Mandalore, Bo-Katan Cryze.
Notable cast members of the show present before include Timothy Olyphant, Amy Sedaris, Titus Welliver, Bill Burr, Omid Abtahi, and “Book of Boba Fett” stars Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen. Rosario Dawson is making her acting debut in “The Mandalorian” season 2 as Ahsoka Tano, a beloved character who will have her own self-titled spinoff series debuting the following year.
Favreau, who will write for most of the season, is executive producing alongside Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy. They are all working with Lucasfilm, along with Colin Wilson and Rick Famuyiwa. Weathers is confirmed to direct an episode for the third season of the show, which started filming in October last year and reportedly wrapped up in March.
