Update:
Rumour had it former One Directioner Harry Styles was in the frame to for a key role in Disney’s live action remake of The Little Mermaid. Well now, according to The Wrap, he’s not. The site is reporting that two cinema chains (AMC Theatres and Regal Cinema) incorrectly tweeted that Styles had been cast, and subsequently deleted those tweets and that Styles has passed on the project despite being a fan.
Read on for our original story.
Original Story:
If you need someone to play a prince so dashing that a teenage girl might be willing to sell her soul to dance with him, it’s easy to see why you’d think of Harry Styles.
According to Variety, Styles was in talks to play Prince Eric. This bit of news follows the major internet-breaking revelation that Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel, the aquatic princess with a song in her heart, and the news that Melissa McCarthy is also in talks to play the villain, Ursula.
Styles is best known for his musical career, including as a solo artist, but he has proven himself on screen already, memorably appearing in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk in 2017. If cast, The Little Mermaid will be his first major acting role since that movie.
Prince Eric is, of course, the fresh-faced young hero who, at least in the 1989 original movie, was a lad in his early 20s who is reluctantly in search of a wife due to the pressures of his grandfather. Fortunately for him, he catches the eye of Ariel, a young mermaid who already is fascinated with life up on the surface. After falling hard for the Danish lad, she comes to his rescue when a storm capsizes his ship and he nearly drowns. When he wakes up the next day and sees Ariel singing above him, he is likewise immediately smitten…if oblivious from the knowledge that his intended is half-fish.
(Also fun fact: In the original movie, Prince Eric is voiced by Christopher Barnes, who would go on to become the definitive Peter Parker voice for many a millennial after playing the character for five seasons on Spider-Man: The Animated Series).
There is a lot of attention riding on Disney’s The Little Mermaid remake: the original is the last key classic of the Disney Renaissance that has yet to make the jump to live-action, after Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin and, most recently, The Lion King. And while critical receptions for all three have been at least somewhat mixed, they’ve also been (or are poised to be) major box office phenomena. Since The Little Mermaid is the Disney movie that set the Renaissance era in motion – and thus all the money Disney is making off it right now –there will possibly be higher expectations to get it right.
For this reason, Disney is turning to well-regarded and familiar hands, including Oscar nominee Rob Marshall as director (Chicago, plus Disney’s recent Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns), as well as Tony winner Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, Moana), who is co-writing new songs for the remake alongside Alan Menken. Howard Ashman, the original co-songwriter who was the creative spark behind much of the beloved 1989 movie, sadly passed away in 1991.
The Little Mermaid is scheduled to begin production early next year.
