Disney's The Little Mermaid LIVE ACTION

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From People.com:

Zendaya Addresses Rumors She Will Play Ariel in a Live-Action Film of The Little Mermaid

Zendaya is touching on rumors that she’ll bring one of Disney’s most recognized and beloved princesses to life.

The Smallfoot actress, 22, tells PEOPLE she wouldn’t be opposed to playing Ariel in a live-action film of The Little Mermaid — something fans have been behind since rumors swirled she’d been offered the role in August.

“I loved The Little Mermaid,” Zendaya says in this week’s issue of PEOPLE. “It is honestly one of my favorite movies of all time. I was obsessed with it when I was a little kid.”

Despite her love of the red-haired mermaid, Zendaya says “it’s just a rumor so we will see.”

As for her career trajectory, the actress says she’s excited for what lies ahead.

“I am an actor, I just like good roles,” she says. “Things I can soak into and really sink my teeth into. I always try to find characters that I can find some human connection to.”

The actress recently turned 22 earlier this month and she proved she is still a nerdy kid at heart when she celebrated with a visit to the Making of Harry Potter Studios Tour in London.

Zendaya shared photos and videos of her excursion of the Hogwarts Express, drinking some Butterbeer and showing some of the animatronics that helped bring non-human characters to life in the films such as Nearly Headless Nick, a ghost played by John Cleese.

[merprincess]

^I'm starting to think she's accepted the offer, especially with the "so we will see". No hope now that I will ever have a chance 😔but I'm rooting for her and hope she can live up to the hype, since she is such a talent and I know she can deliver!

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From TheDisinsider:

RUMOR: Disney Interested In Lady Gaga For A Role In THE LITTLE MERMAID

Back in August it was reported that Disney had offered the role of Ariel in the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid to singer/actress Zendaya. Since then we haven’t heard much on the project until now.

We have heard from a source close to the project, that music superstar Lady Gaga is high on Disney’s wish list for a role in the film. Most likely the role of Ursula. While we haven’t been able to confirm any of this (we reached out to a studio representative who could not comment at this time), we’ve decided to share it as a rumor and nothing more.

Gaga is receiving fan and critic praise for her role as Ally in A Star Is Born, which is in theaters now. She has also received praise for role in the popular FX series American Horror Story. Lady Gaga’s name has also floated around DCU as it was rumored she was offered a role in Birds of Prey alongside Margot Robbie she reportedly passed on the project.

The 1989 animated classic centered around a rebellious 16-year-old mermaid Ariel, Who is fascinated with life on land. On one of her visits to the surface, which are forbidden by her controlling father, King Triton, she falls for a human prince. Determined to be with her new love, Ariel makes a dangerous deal with the sea witch Ursula (Pat Carroll) to become human for three days. But when plans go awry for the star-crossed lovers, the king must make the ultimate sacrifice for his daughter.

Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda will team up to compose the music for the film, as well as add new songs to the film. Mary Poppins Returns director Rob Marshall is set to helm the film, from a script by Jane Goldman (X-Men: Days Of Future Past).

Production on The Little Mermaid is expected to take place in Puerto Rico and Cape Town Africa. As of right now there is no release date for the film. Expect to hear more news on this project within the year.

[merprincess]

veu I heard about this as well! Even though I'd prefer a drag queen in the role, I'm actually really on board with Gaga as Ursula!

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I'm very curious to see Gaga in Ursula's role.

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From Irish Times:

As we speak, Colleen Atwood is between live action Disney reboots. Perhaps. Having just completed duties on Tim Burton’s Dumbo, in which the titular pachyderm befriends Colin Farrell, she is currently attached to Disney’s reconfiguration of The Little Mermaid.

“For the moment, The Little Mermaid is a twinkle in someone’s eye,” she says. “It’s so far out from starting production that I don’t really know what will happen. It would be a special challenge. The Little Mermaid, the Hans Christian Andersen version, is quite a story and very different from the cartoon. I don’t know where they’re going to go with it. But it could be interesting. I actually have dressed a mermaid. I made a fantastic costume for a lovely Scottish actor called Sharon Rooney for Dumbo. But she’s more of a circus mermaid.”

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From Fandango:

Q: Fandango: Lastly, before I let you go, are you still working on the Little Mermaid movie? Is that next for you after this?

Rob Marshall: That's percolating right now. I'm starting to see if I can find my way into the film. It's a complicated film to do as a live-action film, so we're working on it right now. We'll see. I'm hoping I can find my way in and find exciting ways to bring that to the screen.

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From Variety:

Q: What's going on with The Little Mermaid? Is that something that's going to happen for you?

Rob Marshall: It was really lovely that Disney approached me about that. It's a big title for them, obviously. Right now, myself and John DeLuca are in, what I would call, the exploratory process of looking at it and seeing if it could become a film. A live-action film. It's so different. There are a lot of challenges to that film. Singing underwater, staging underwater...We had an underwater sequence in [Mary Poppins Returns] and that was complicated.

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From EW:

Then, once director Rob Marshall comes up for air from Mary Poppins Returns, the director will head underwater with Menken (and Sebastian superfan Lin-Manuel Miranda) for a live-action go at The Little Mermaid. “It’s about a woman finding her voice,” Marshall recently told EW. “A girl finding her voice, actually. And that immediately just felt like an interesting, timely piece that resonated with us.”

[yougottaloveariel]

Still Traveling As to live action WILL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT

[flyingdutchmermaid]

I have a feeling the role of Ariel might be played by Stranger Things' Sadie Sink since she worked with Sierra Boggess in the Ever After musical or Raffey Cassidy from Tomorrowland now that she sings in "Vox Lux"! I'm worried about an Ariel emulating the vocal stylings of Rihanna or Sia www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc32Awu0Dsw


www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0L3y3R3IhU

[merprincess]

yougottaloveariel Sadie would be an ADORABLE Ariel, wow! She's the perfect age, a natural redhead, has a great voice with Broadway experience and youthful acting energy! I do worry that maybe she is a bit too young depending on who is cast as Eric or what direction Disney decides they want Ariel's actress's age to be, but she'd be a pretty good choice!

[yougottaloveariel]

Well I be back with some interesting things to show First From History of Ariel                                 An Ariel themed Christmas Tree





All that is missing is a Lionel Disney themed train under it pulling the Little Mermaid cars

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Lin-Manuel Miranda talks about the remake.

From Theaustralian.com.au:

There are always other projects in the offing. One, with Rob Marshall, is a live-action version of The Little Mermaid for Disney, for which he has been enlisted to write songs; he’s also acting as a producer. “I don’t know where that’s at right now, I read a great draft of a screenplay and I gave some notes, and that’s where we’re at — in process but not imminent.”


From Indiewire:

He’s also committed to a Disney live-action remake of his old fave, “The Little Mermaid.” “If they ask me to write new lyrics for Alan Menken, I’m happy to,” he said. “It will be what the script requires. It’s still in development.”

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From Broadway:

"I see my role on The Little Mermaid like Rob Marshall’s role on Mary Poppins Returns," Miranda says. "Rob was the number one fan of the original movie. It was the first movie he saw. If [the remake] doesn’t need a new song, I won't write a new song. I have such reverence for the original. I'm really on board to protect it as it gets adapted."


From Youtube:

Q: What song are you most excited to compose for the live adaptation of The Little Mermaid, and will Prince Eric be getting a song?

Lin-Manuel Miranda: Oh! That's a fantastic question. I don't know the answer to that either. I think we'll find out. My favorite character was always Sebastian. He's really a misunderstood composer. Everyone forgets that but he's the court composer and suddenly he's babysitting a sixteen-year old and man, that is so relatable to me. You know, we're still very much in script development phase on Little Mermaid so if there needs to be a new song, I'm happy to write lyrics for Alan Menken but if it doesn't need to be, I won't write it because that score is perfect.

Video:

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From Collider:

Q: What does it mean to you loving that material and actually writing original songs for that movie?

Lin-Manuel Miranda: Well, we'll see if it happens. I'm signed on to Little Mermaid in a fan capacity. I'm a producer but basically if it doesn't need a new song, I won't write it. So, I'm working with Alan Menken [and] if we find a moment that calls for a new song, I will write lyrics for him. But no one thinks that score's more perfect than I do. I might be too reverent. I might talk myself out of a job.

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From Inquisitr:

January 10, 2019
Lindsay Lohan Seriously Wants To Play Ariel In Live-Action Version Of Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’

Lindsay Lohan wants to get back in with The Walt Disney Company in a big way.

The Walt Disney Company has been taking a number of their animated classics and turning them into live-action or CGI movies. The majority of them have been almost straight remakes while others have new twists and are seen as being re-imagined. One movie that is on the slate to be remade sometime in the future is The Little Mermaid, and Lindsay Lohan is totally not against swimming in to play the role of Ariel.

Disney has been picking from its collection of animated classics and turning them into live-action versions. As fans will see later this year, The Lion King will hit theaters in CGI form, and it is going to have an absolutely stellar cast to complete the full “Circle of Life.”

Cinderella, Dumbo, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, and others have all either had great success or will be hitting theaters soon, but there are plenty others on the way. In the past, Disney has stated that The Little Mermaid will receive the live-action treatment sometime in the future, but they’ve been rather quiet on that front.

A couple of years ago, Entertainment Weekly revealed that Lin Manuel-Miranda would work with legendary Disney composer Alan Menken for the film’s music. There has been no director set and no one named for the cast, but one person is hopeful to take on the lead role.

Jodi Benson not only provided the speaking voice of Ariel in the animated hit but also the singing voice.

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From Comicbook.com:

Lindsay Lohan Still Wants to Play 'The Little Mermaid' For Disney

Lindsay Lohan hasn't given up on the dream of being part of The Little Mermaid.

With Disney in the midst of bringing its classic animated films such as Aladdin, Mulan, Dumbo, and The Lion King to life with live-action adaptations following the success of 2017's Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid is on the slate to get the same treatment. While Ariel's next chance to be part of our world is still in development, Mean Girls star Lohan made it clear in an Instagram post in February 2017 that she wants the role of the flame-haired young mermaid -- and nearly two years later, she's still of the same mind.


In a new interview with Variety, Lohan affirmed that she's a huge fan of the film -- and plans to "harass" her agent about it.

"The Little Mermaid is my favorite movie since I was a kid," Lohan said. "Whenever I put that move on, it makes me happy. I'm like, 'Everybody, stop. Watch this movie.'"

Lohan was then asked if Disney had reached out to her about the film at all and Lohan said they hadn’t but seemed to have a plan to change that.

"No, but I'm going to harass my agent about it after this," she said.

It may take more than her agent, however. Lohan isn't the only star who has expressed interest in The Little Mermaid. Audra McDonald, who played Madam de Garderobe in Beauty and the Beast, has said that she would love to be involved in The Little Mermaid while there were reports last fall that Spider-Man: Homecoming star Zendaya was being considered as Ariel. There's also Hollywood's perception of Lohan that could stand in the way. Lohan notably had quite a few issues in the past -- what the Variety interview described as "one of the biggest crashes in Hollywood history" -- but Lohan, who is the star of MTV's Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club reality series, hopes people can move on from that.

"I think there's a misconception that people still have about me, and I think it's unfortunate," Lohan said. "Hopefully, this will change people's perception once and for all."

The Little Mermaid live action adaptation is in development. Other upcoming Disney live-action adaptations include Dumbo which opens in theaters March 29, 2019, Aladdin on May 24, 2019, and The Lion King on July 19, 2019.

What do you think about Lindsay Lohan as Ariel?

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From Skyler Shuler's Twitter:

I get a lot questions regarding Disney’s live-action THE LITTLE MERMAID. Here’s what I’ve heard.

Any and all official casting announcements are being saved for the D23 Expo.

How close will the film follow the animated film? It’ll be as close as ALADDIN will be to the original.

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From Makeitbetter.net:

Disney Legend Alan Menken Dishes on Live-Action ‘Aladdin,’ ‘The Little Mermaid,’ and That Time Lin-Manuel Miranda Begged for His Autograph

Think of the greatest Disney films and songs in recent memory and chances are you’ll find yourself humming an Alan Menken melody for the rest of the day. From “Under the Sea” to “Be Our Guest” to “A Whole New World,” to name a few, the eight-time Oscar-winning composer and pianist (who also happens to have plenty of Grammy and Tony Awards on his shelf too), has more hits to his name than many of the most recognizable songwriters in history. We have Menken to thank for the music of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hercules, Tangled, Enchanged, Newsies, and the list goes on and on.

Recently, Menken has begun bringing the story of his incredible career journey to the stage in his one-man show, “A Whole New World of Alan Menken.” In the show, Menken accompanies his own singing and storytelling on the piano, performing some of his most beloved songs and sharing the stories behind them. Ahead of his upcoming performance at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre on March 30, I had the chance to ask Menken about everything from how he got his amazing start, to what he really thinks about all of those Disney live-action films and what it’s like to work with some of the (other) biggest names in the business, like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Guy Ritchie, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

Most people immediately associate you with some of the most beloved Disney songs of all time, but they might not know where your career really launched, with your collaboration with Howard Ashman, first on God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and then on Little Shop of Horrors. How did that come about?
Alan Menken: When Howard and I met, I was initially a composer/lyricist and I was working in the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop with a wonderful teacher named Lehmen Engel and just writing lots of shows and trying to make a name and playing in cabarets and doing the things you need to do to make a living. Howard was looking for a collaborator for God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, which was an adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut novel. We decided to work together and that became our first musical together.

Rosewater ran Off-Broadway but it was a little too big to run Off-Broadway. There were 14 in the cast, and yet it had an Off-Broadway sensibility. So Howard said, “OK next show we’ll make it a little more economical. I see no more than eight characters plus this puppeteer and puppet. And that of course turned out to be Little Shop of Horrors, our first hit together.

And then Howard was ultimately responsible for bringing you on board for your first work with Disney, and your collaboration was really the beginning of a hugely successful period for Disney. How did that happen?
Coming to Disney was actually our coming back together as a collaboration. Howard had a choice about who he would ask, and I was blessed that he came back to me and we embarked on The Little Mermaid.

The other part of the story is that unbeknownst to many, the AIDs crisis was robbing us of so much talent. Howard was sick at the time but was not letting anybody know.

It was an amazing time for us, working together. When we wrote Little Mermaid I did not know anything about his health situation. It was only at the Oscars for Little Mermaid that it was no longer possible for him to keep it from everyone. So I knew about it when we began working on Beauty and the Beast, which he never lived to see, and we had also begun work on Aladdin.


So there was that period of intense creativity in the midst of a lot of human drama and the creation of all those movies. And, of course, they ended up being an incredible renaissance. You don’t know you’re in the middle of history while you’re in the middle of it, but we were.

Collaboration has been so important to the music you’ve created. Is your co-writing process always the same or is each project totally different?
Some are more different than others. The first prominent collaborator after Howard was Tim Rice when he came aboard to help me finish Aladdin. That could not be more different from Howard and most of my collaborations because, number one, we had an ocean separating us most of the time. And when we didn’t we had to work in a very intensive multi-tasking process. We were working on a number of songs at the same time. Then we would separate and then come back together. And also just as a personality and as an artist, Tim and his work with Andrew Lloyd Webber is very different from the way I worked with Howard. But at the end of the day it’s still about a composer at the piano and a lyricist kind of pacing around the room.

Let’s talk about the deluge of Disney live-action remakes coming down the pipeline. Beauty and the Beast was a big hit that really delivered for audiences and creatively seemed to fall somewhere between the animated original and Broadway stage version. What’s the creative mindset for these? Is it to remain as true as possible to the original? Do you feel pressure because audiences love those originals so much?
Well, I feel a protectiveness. Animation and theater are both mediums where the writers, especially songwriters, really move into the center of the co-creative process. For a live-action movie, it is truly a director’s medium, so it’s very dependent on what the director wants.

Bill Condon [director of Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast] is a huge Broadway fan, so even when we didn’t fit songs from the Broadway show into the movie, he still wanted some of those themes to be reflected in the underscore. He wanted to be very close to the theater style, but he also wanted to dig deeper into the authenticity of the 18th century and of France.

You’re now working on live-action versions of Aladdin [release date: May 24, 2019] and The Little Mermaid [release date: to be announced]. How are those being approached?
Each director has their own sort of biases about how they might want to approach an adaptation. Guy Ritchie [director of upcoming live-action Aladdin, release date May 24, 2019] is not known for musicals at all.

Guy really wants to infuse much more of a contemporary pop sensibility into the storytelling and the songs of Aladdin. We’ve been doing that and that’s been a lot of fun, but you walk a line knowing that we want to stay as true as possible to what audiences already know and love and are invested in.

On Aladdin I’ve been working with Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who’ve been my lyricists on the new songs, and I’m rewriting or updating some of the iconic songs that Howard and I wrote.


For The Little Mermaid, I’ll be collaborating with Lin-Manuel Miranda, and he, as I think people know, is a huge Little Mermaid fan. Growing up, he went to the same school as my niece in New York and my sister said, “Oh there’s this boy, Lin-Manuel Miranda—and he loves it [The Little Mermaid], and could you sign this poster for him?”

He was insanely zealous about [The Little Mermaid] and also about musical theater and you can see that in who he’s become as a writer. The passion pours out of him. His son is named Sebastian, if that gives you an indication of how much of a fan he is.

Wow, so you gave your autograph to a young, Little Mermaid-obsessed Lin-Manuel Miranda and now you’re working together on the new film? How cool—he’s so talented.
And so smart.

I think we’ll have a lot of fun writing this. We have not started yet. I believe the process will start probably within a few months. And I don’t know what the spots will be but I’m really excited about us working together on that.

I think everyone is excited about that collaboration!
Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 came out recently and probably the most talked-about scene is when Vanellope [played by Sarah Silverman] has a run-in with all of the other Disney princesses. Soon after, she’s given her own princess “I Want” song, “A Place Called Slaugher Race,” which you wrote, and which, as Sarah herself said, is quite “subversive.”
It’s a little along the lines of the thing I did for Sausage Party, the Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg film. A couple years ago I wrote the opening number for it [Menken also scored the film]. I feel like I was kind of like a piece of found art put in for comic purposes. [Laughs.]

Sarah Silverman said working with you was a dream come true for her. That must have been fun for you too to work on that song with her and with Gal [Gadot].
As soon as we got into the room together I had heard Sarah was a big Little Shop fan so I went to the piano and started playing “Somewhere That’s Green,” and she did the whole song as a perfect Audrey literally within five minutes of us meeting. And then of course we got to work on her song. We had a blast in the studio and it was a lot of fun and the success of it has been a great surprise. I’m really pleased.


One of the things that’s so special about the projects you’ve done and continue to do is the way that they bridge the generations with these new live-action films bringing things full circle for parents like me who’ve grown up on the animated films, and now we’re doing the first the animated, then live-action film and stage versions with our kids. Are you having fun doing so much revisiting? Are you eager to get some time to work on new original projects?
Yes, yes—I’m answering the second question. I’m eager to go new, and I have new, here and there. BUT, I’m also blessed that people keep wanting to go back to the old. One of my animated musicals is being adapted to the stage now. It will be announced soon, but I can’t share it yet!

It’s Mermaid coming, it’s Disenchanted which is coming along. Apparently another adaptation of Little Shop of Horrors is coming along. We’re talking about a lot of other animated [films] that I think are going to come to the screen. So yeah, there’s a lot going on.

So I guess the problem is really that you were just too good from the start—no time for anything new because everyone wants you to keep redoing the same great stuff we all know and love!
[Laughs.] I guess so. But, I get to write new songs and work with new people and that’s always a lot of fun.

I have two young boys who are big fans of your music. How about some parenting advice: You’ve said that as a child you were more interested in creating your own music than practicing the songs assigned to you by teachers. You’ve raised two daughters who are artists and performers. What advice do you have for parents who see a creative spark in their kids? How do you nurture that and help them without being overbearing?
Encourage them. Praise them when it’s appropriate. Don’t overpraise them when it’s not. Encourage them to always be doing something new. Encourage them to know how precious their talent is. And keep helping them go onto the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

Whatever it is, you’ve got to do what you’re passionate about because you love it, and not because you want a result. And then just give them freedom to explore. Don’t try to cut to a full flowering before their time because sometimes it doesn’t happen until you’re in your 30s or 40s. Just make sure the thing they want to do all day is the thing they do.

I was passionate about music, I just hated to practice. But still, it was important that I learned basic skills. I would learn the beginning of a Beethoven sonata and I would just make up the rest of it myself.

So don’t make them stay within the lines too much…
But remind them that there are lines! They know. They’ll be a good partner with you on what they need.

Those of us in Chicago are lucky enough to get the chance to see you perform live on stage in your upcoming one-man show, “A Whole New World of Alan Menken.” What can the audience look forward to?
Basically, I talk through my life and my career and we have three screens of visuals. I pick out the songs that are inevitably the highlights of my career and they’re what people know. I play and interact with the audience and bounce up and down on the piano and knock myself out for about two hours and have fun.