After the magical successes of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin at the box office, and with The Lion King prepared to roar next month, it is not surprising that Disney is making the remaining crown jewel of the Disney Renaissance a top priority. As such, major movement is beginning to swim around Rob Marshall and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s The Little Mermaid remake. The latest is the revelation that Melissa McCarthy is in talks to star in the aquatic musical.
News of the potential casting come out of THR, who reports the Mouse House has approached the Oscar nominated star to play the villain Ursula in the upcoming live-action remake.
Ursula of course is one of Disney’s upper-echelon baddies, and one of the key components who helped Little Mermaid prove to be the film that revived Walt Disney Animation Studios. As an underwater, half-octopus sorceress who is also a stickler about contracts, she convinces the mermaid Princess Ariel to sell her voice in exchange for a pair of enchanted human legs in the original film. However, what she really has designs on is the crown worn by the naïve mermaid’s father.
The Little Mermaid, which was directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, is the last remaining sacred cow of Disney’s 1990s animated golden age. While the film technically opened in November 1989, it was the first picture to bridge Disney’s classical animation with the more modernist Broadway formula, introduced to Disney by lyricist and writer Howard Ashman. With composer Alan Menken, Ashman helped pave the way for the Disney formula that still proves enchanting, and lucrative, in modern Disney animated classics like Frozen, Tangled, and Moana.
On that wavelength, Moana songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda has been tapped to co-write with Menken new songs for a longer live-action film (Ashman passed away in 1991). Miranda has history with Disney through Moana and Mary Poppins Returns, the latter of which was also directed by Marshall.
The Little Mermaid is currently in development with a release date TBC.
