After losing Harry Styles to the role earlier this year and searching for months for a replacement, the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid has found its Prince Eric in up-and-comer Jonah Hauer-King (A Dog’s Way Home, Little Women), according to Variety.
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Halle Bailey will portray Ariel in the movie with Javier Bardem set to play King Triton, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, Awkwafina as Scuttle, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian and Melissa McCarthy, who will play the role of the sea witch Ursula.
Mary Poppins Returns director Rob Marshall will helm the film which features a script by David Magee (Life of Pi, Mary Poppins Returns). No stranger to musicals, or working for Disney, Marshall was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for his feature film debut, Chicago. Since then, he’s directed the likes of Memoirs of a Geisha and Nine. Marshall has also made his last three films at Disney, including Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Into the Woods, and the Poppins sequel.
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For their new version of The Little Mermaid, Disney is pairing Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alan Menken to create a blend of old and new songs that will be featured in the upcoming big screen version. Miranda and Marshall also worked together on Mary Poppins Returns.
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Disney’s animated The Little Mermaid made over $211 million at the box office and became a bestseller on home video, popularizing songs like “Under The Sea” and “Part of Your World.” Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s Danish fairy tale, it tells the story of a 16-year-old mermaid princess named Ariel who longs to be human.
