Since the release of The Little Mermaid, it has had lots of love and positive reactions swimming its way. The film follows a similar story to the 1989’s animated The Little Mermaid: Ariel a teenage mermaid who craves to walk amongst the human world. The Little Mermaid is a big reset for Disney’s live-action movies, with their other movies like The Jungle Book, Mulan, Aladdin, and The Lion King slowly fading, Disney made sure that The Little Mermaid was their best comeback to their live-actions and would be talked about for ages. When the live-action film hit theaters it made a huge impact at the box office acquiring $95.5 million.
Deadline discuss the changes made to The Little Mermaid with the cast, Halle Bailey (Ariel), Jonah Hauer-King (Prince Eric), and the rest of the cast, as they discussed creative changes to the script and characters, to make the film more impactful and modernized.
A big change to the script was the ending of the live-action, as King Triton reconciles with Ariel, as he ensures that her wants and needs are being acknowledged. Having that be added to the script accounts for a lot towards a parent and child relationship, because in those little acts, it showcases a lesson for the child and parent, to have a healthy relationship with each other. Bailey expressed her love for the new ending for Ariel and King Triton’s relationship.
You’re seeing Ariel transform in front of your eyes, where at the beginning she’s a little bit shy and timid and frustrated because the beautiful things she’s voicing about herself and her future and her wants and needs aren’t being heard. And so, for her to go out of her way to burst through to the world that she doesn’t know, and for her to be brave enough to do so and come out on top the way she did, and fighting for love and friendship and family at the heart of the film is just, it’s so cool to see. So, I definitely say moments like the ending were really impactful to me, and I was happy to see that transformation in Ariel.
When it comes to Prince Eric there’s not much to him personally and all we know is that he’s a character that’s in love with Ariel. Hauer-King wanted to do a deeper dive into expressing more with Prince Eric and show that there’s more to him than meets the eye. Hauer-King stated, “And I think when we meet him, he is quite lost. He knows that there’s something out there that he wants. And I think him being saved by this mystery girl is a catalyst for that. It sparks this journey in him wanting to break free from the four walls of the castle.”
When Disney remade their animated characters into live-action, the actors and actresses had to give a new persona to the characters as they tried to navigate how their characters would react to the modern world while keeping alive their already set personalities from their animated films. Sometimes that’s adding or cutting scenes out from the original animated film to see what best fits the script to make the live-action version stand out. This sometimes gets harsh backlash from big Disney fans that don’t like when the original gets changed, but Bailey and Hauer-King added more to Ariel and Prince Eric, respectively, in their live-action performances.
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