The Little Mermaid 30th Anniversary

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From TorontoSun.com:

'The Little Mermaid' director, animator on the birth of an animated classic

It’s hard to imagine a world in which Disney’s animation arm needed saving. But nearly 30 years ago, it was The Little Mermaid that swam onto the big screen and relaunched a wave of animated films that revolutionized the industry.

“There was a kind of rebirth that happened that started with that movie. That period — Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King — was something we always hoped would happen,” Mermaid co-director Ron Clements says in a phone interview.

In addition to being a box office and critical success, The Little Mermaid earned multiple Oscars (for best song and best score) and spawned a Broadway show.

And like other classic Disney animated films, the story of Ariel — an underwater princess who meets and falls in love with her human prince charming — is slated to make its way to the big screen for a live-action revamp.

A special 30th anniversary edition of The Little Mermaid is now available both digitally and on Blu-ray. It includes a sing-along cut of the film, behind-the-scenes features and a look at a deleted character.

Calling from Los Angeles, supervising animator Mark Henn joined Clements to reflect on Mermaid’s enduring legacy and weigh in on Disney’s upcoming re-imagining.

The Little Mermaid has become one of those revered titles in the Disney canon. Did you know that this could become a classic?

Ron Clements: I knew it was going to get compared to previous Disney films, but I didn’t really think about it in those terms. We just wanted to do something that would match up and could be on the shelf with those earlier films. But I did not envision an afterlife like the film has had.

Mark Henn: We got a sense that what we were working on was kind of special. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but there was a joy surrounding the production. People seemed to be pretty happy. But projecting down the line 30 years, we had no idea how impactful that film was going to be.


I watched the extras on the Blu-ray and one of the interesting things to me was the featurette that delves into Walt Disney’s early plans for Little Mermaid. Did you know that Little Mermaid had this long history with the Disney company?

Clements: I pitched the idea of doing the movie around 1984. It wasn’t until that we were a year into making it that one of the storyboard artists let us know that it was planned. There was an idea they were considering that would have seen it be done as a Fantasia-type movie with musical sequences.

You both have worked on many, many Disney movies. Ron you most recently worked on Moana with your Mermaid co-director John Musker. But people may not know that this was the title that restarted a Disney renaissance when it came to animated movies. Was there a lot of pressure going into this?

Clements: People may not know now, but at that time, Disney was going through a very rough period. There were even some questions as to whether Disney animation would keep going. I think that weight carried itself over Mermaid as well. In retrospect I think the stakes were pretty high.

Henn: Coming out of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the studio was transitioning itself. There was an older generation and newer storytellers and artists that were emerging. Along with The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver & Company, we were on the right path. But Mermaid became our home run. The musical structure set the tone for the next four or five films. It became cool to go see a Disney animated movie again.

Clements: People tended to stereotype Disney films as being for little kids. We always thought Disney films would resonate with audiences of all ages and Mermaid broke through that stigma. It became a date movie. It was a movie more for everyone and that’s what we wanted it to be.


Disney has given some of its animated films an extended life through live action remakes. In addition to Dumbo and Lion King this year, there’s talk of a live action Little Mermaid down the line. What do you think about that?

Clements: We’re not involved in those. Lin Manuel-Miranda, who I worked with on Moana, is a key player with the Mermaid remake. He’s hugely influenced by the original film so I think he’s a good person to be involved with that. I think of these movies as grandchildren. You’re less involved in bringing them up, but it will be interesting to see how it gets reinvented.

The Little Mermaid 30th anniversary edition is available now on Blu-ray and digital.

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From CTVNews:

How 'The Little Mermaid' paved the way for modern Disney princesses

This image released by Disney shows Ariel, voiced by Jodi Benson, in a scene from "The Little Mermaid. The film, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, also had a big role in making Disney into an animation juggernaut. (Disney via AP)

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
Published Tuesday, March 19, 2019 2:14PM EDT
Last Updated Tuesday, March 19, 2019 2:36PM EDT
NEW YORK -- It's not uncommon for people to just look at Jodi Benson and burst into tears.

Sometimes they hyperventilate or scream. But mostly they break down and start sobbing. Benson will hold them, heaving in her arms, and pat their back gently.

Benson isn't a household name but for many she's an intimate part of their childhood. She supplied the singing and speaking voice of Ariel, the heroine of the 1989 animated Disney hit "The Little Mermaid," which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Benson says she will sometimes watch as the stunned movie's fans virtually go back in time in front of her. "It triggers a memory for them," she says.

"They remember who they were with when they saw the movie the first time. Maybe that sibling is no longer with them, that grandparent is no longer with them. It reminds them of a relationship that had been broken with a parent. So they have all sorts of emotions that go on."

"The Little Mermaid " has changed a lot of lives, not least of which is Benson's, who has continued to perform Ariel virtually every weekend in concerts as well as on film in the "Wreck-It Ralph" franchise.

"The Little Mermaid" also had a big role in making Disney into an animation juggernaut and reviving the art form. Many believe we'd never have Anna and Elsa from "Frozen" without first having Ariel.

"Disney was starting to get into a groove that would continue, but I feel like a lot of that started with 'A Little Mermaid,"' says Ron Clements, who co-wrote and co-directed the film.

Benson was a rising Broadway star when Ariel came into her orbit. She had been in a short-lived musical "Smile" when Howard Ashman, the musical's lyricist and story writer, invited the out-of-work cast to audition for his next project, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid."

Producers wanted the singing and speaking voice to be supplied by the same actress. So Benson, a lyric soprano, sang the signature "Part of Your World" on a reel-to-reel tape and was handed a few of pages of dialogue.

"I ran into the ladies' room," she recalls "and waited for everybody to get out of the stalls and started talking to the mirror, sort of trying to come up with what would she sound like at 16."

Benson, it turned out, was a master mimic. She had spent countless hours in her room as a child with her guitar, singing along to records by Barbra Streisand, Carole King, James Taylor as well as Marvin Hamlisch's "A Chorus Line."

"I would start to just sing like them. But it wasn't like I was trying to be them. It's just that's what I heard. And so that's just what you do. You just sound like what you been listening to," she says.

A year or so after auditioning for Ariel, she got the call that she'd won the role. "I completely forgot that I had auditioned," she says. Back then, voiceover work wasn't very glamorous and big celebrities wouldn't consider it.

"It wasn't a good job. Doing voiceovers was what you would do when your career was on the back half, when it was tanking," says Benson. She thought Ariel would be just another notch on her resume. It was not.

"Things just changed overnight," she says.

Propelled by such Alan Menken songs as "Under the Sea" and "Kiss the Girl," the film won two Grammys and earned three Academy Award nominations. It was critically acclaimed, with Roger Ebert calling it a "jolly and inventive animated fantasy," and would go to earn $211 million worldwide. Parents of children with learning disabilities have told Benson their child's first words were from the film.

A live-action remake is in the works, featuring new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created "Hamilton." He loved the 1989 animated film so much its partly the reason he named his first child Sebastian -- the mermaid's crab friend.

It was the kind of hit that Clements and his animators at Disney had long been hoping for. He had started at Disney in 1974 and was part of a new generation of artists trying to change the notion that animation was just for kids.

Clements had pitched a two-page treatment of the musical to then-studio head Michael Eisner and was given the green light. For Clements and his partner, John Musker, the stakes were high: It was the first fairy tale Disney had done for some three decades.

"There was a feeling -- all through 'Little Mermaid' -- that this film had potential to be the film that could break through and work the way we were all hungry for and hoping for," recalls Clements, who went on to co-direct "Aladdin" and "Hercules."

"It was really, really gratifying that it did break through. It broke through the stigma that animated films were just for kids. It became a date movie. People started taking Disney animation seriously again."

Over the past 30 years, Ariel has become the bridge between classic princesses like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and modern ones like Mulan and Merida. And Benson has become the official Ariel ambassador, tapped to do sequels, video games and shorts, in addition to voicing other characters like Barbie in the "Toy Story" franchise.

Her arms are always open to fans and she's now welcoming the fourth generation to "The Little Mermaid." So feel free to cry on her shoulder.

"It doesn't feel like a job. It just feels like a way of life more than more than anything else," she says. "You have this multigenerational moment that families can share together. And I get to be a small piece of the puzzle of their story."

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From Boston and Lfpress.com:

Now 30, ‘The Little Mermaid’ paved the way for Elsa and Anna
"Disney was starting to get into a groove that would continue, but I feel like a lot of that started with 'A Little Mermaid.'"
Ariel, voiced by Jodi Benson, in a scene from "The Little Mermaid." –Disney via AP
By MARK KENNEDY AP, 2:37 PM
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s not uncommon for people to just look at Jodi Benson and burst into tears.

Sometimes they hyperventilate or scream. But mostly they break down and start sobbing. Benson will hold them, heaving in her arms, and pat their back gently.

Benson isn’t a household name but for many she’s an intimate part of their childhood. She supplied the singing and speaking voice of Ariel, the heroine of the 1989 animated Disney hit “The Little Mermaid,” which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Benson says she will sometimes watch as the stunned movie’s fans virtually go back in time in front of her. “It triggers a memory for them,” she says.

“They remember who they were with when they saw the movie the first time. Maybe that sibling is no longer with them, that grandparent is no longer with them. It reminds them of a relationship that had been broken with a parent. So they have all sorts of emotions that go on.”

“The Little Mermaid ” has changed a lot of lives, not least of which is Benson’s, who has continued to perform Ariel virtually every weekend in concerts as well as on film in the “Wreck-It Ralph” franchise.

“The Little Mermaid” also had a big role in making Disney into an animation juggernaut and reviving the art form. Many believe we’d never have Anna and Elsa from “Frozen” without first having Ariel.

“Disney was starting to get into a groove that would continue, but I feel like a lot of that started with ‘A Little Mermaid,'” says Ron Clements, who co-wrote and co-directed the film.

Benson was a rising Broadway star when Ariel came into her orbit. She had been in a short-lived musical “Smile” when Howard Ashman, the musical’s lyricist and story writer, invited the out-of-work cast to audition for his next project, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.”

Producers wanted the singing and speaking voice to be supplied by the same actress. So Benson, a lyric soprano, sang the signature “Part of Your World” on a reel-to-reel tape and was handed a few of pages of dialogue.

“I ran into the ladies’ room,” she recalls “and waited for everybody to get out of the stalls and started talking to the mirror, sort of trying to come up with what would she sound like at 16.”

Benson, it turned out, was a master mimic. She had spent countless hours in her room as a child with her guitar, singing along to records by Barbra Streisand, Carole King, James Taylor as well as Marvin Hamlisch’s “A Chorus Line.”

“I would start to just sing like them. But it wasn’t like I was trying to be them. It’s just that’s what I heard. And so that’s just what you do. You just sound like what you been listening to,” she says.

A year or so after auditioning for Ariel, she got the call that she’d won the role. “I completely forgot that I had auditioned,” she says. Back then, voiceover work wasn’t very glamorous and big celebrities wouldn’t consider it.

“It wasn’t a good job. Doing voiceovers was what you would do when your career was on the back half, when it was tanking,” says Benson. She thought Ariel would be just another notch on her resume. It was not.

“Things just changed overnight,” she says.

Propelled by such Alan Menken songs as “Under the Sea” and “Kiss the Girl,” the film won two Grammys and earned three Academy Award nominations. It was critically acclaimed, with Roger Ebert calling it a “jolly and inventive animated fantasy,” and would go to earn $211 million worldwide. Parents of children with learning disabilities have told Benson their child’s first words were from the film.

A live-action remake is in the works, featuring new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created “Hamilton.” He loved the 1989 animated film so much its partly the reason he named his first child Sebastian — the mermaid’s crab friend.

It was the kind of hit that Clements and his animators at Disney had long been hoping for. He had started at Disney in 1974 and was part of a new generation of artists trying to change the notion that animation was just for kids.

Clements had pitched a two-page treatment of the musical to then-studio head Michael Eisner and was given the green light. For Clements and his partner, John Musker, the stakes were high: It was the first fairy tale Disney had done for some three decades.

“There was a feeling — all through ‘Little Mermaid’ — that this film had potential to be the film that could break through and work the way we were all hungry for and hoping for,” recalls Clements, who went on to co-direct “Aladdin” and “Hercules.”

“It was really, really gratifying that it did break through. It broke through the stigma that animated films were just for kids. It became a date movie. People started taking Disney animation seriously again.”

Over the past 30 years, Ariel has become the bridge between classic princesses like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and modern ones like Mulan and Merida. And Benson has become the official Ariel ambassador, tapped to do sequels, video games and shorts, in addition to voicing other characters like Barbie in the “Toy Story” franchise.

Her arms are always open to fans and she’s now welcoming the fourth generation to “The Little Mermaid.” So feel free to cry on her shoulder.

“It doesn’t feel like a job. It just feels like a way of life more than more than anything else,” she says. “You have this multigenerational moment that families can share together. And I get to be a small piece of the puzzle of their story.”

[veu]

From Variety:

‘The Little Mermaid’ Turns 30: Inside the Disney Classic’s Rocky Journey
By MACKENZIE NICHOLS

“The Little Mermaid” wasn’t just an animated classic. It was a life raft of sorts for struggling Walt Disney Studios.

It’s hard to believe given how dominant Disney is today in the family entertainment space, but when the story of Ariel, a mermaid princess who just wanted to be part of Prince Eric’s world, hit theaters, the studio was in a rut. Recent animated offerings such as “The Great Mouse Detective,” “Oliver & Company” and “The Black Cauldron” had flopped or disappointed at the box office and executives were even thinking about overhauling the struggling division. But salvation arrived in the form of “The Little Mermaid,” a film that was able to recapture the magic of an earlier era of movie-making, ranking alongside classic Disney films such as “Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella” with its ability to make familiar fairy tales the stuff of big screen enchantment.


More important for the struggling studio, “The Little Mermaid” was a hit, one of the biggest of the year. The film would ultimately gross over $200 million worldwide at the box office after it opened on Nov. 17, 1989.

The animated movie, with music by composer Alan Menken and the late lyricist Howard Ashman, pushed Disney animation into new territory setting the stage for a new golden age of animation. Without “The Little Mermaid,” other classic Disney films of the 1990s such as “The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin” would not have been possible.

Thirty years later after “The Little Mermaid” swam into theaters, the cast and crew dished to Variety about the making of the film and the way it managed to capture the popular imagination and revitalize Disney animation.

“The Little Mermaid” characters could have looked very different. Ariel is best-known for her fiery-red locks, but her coiffure was almost a mirror image of another famous big-screen mermaid, while Sebastian could have been an English or Jamaican crab rather than Trinidadian. When it came to creating Ursula, the villainous sea witch, animator Glen Keane channeled cult icon Divine.

Keane: [The directors] wanted Ariel to have this fiery personality. Originally she was blonde, but we switched to redhead. One of the executives was saying “Mermaids have blonde hair, I mean look at [Daryl Hannah’s blonde hair in] “Splash.” I said “Well, yeah, but there’s no such thing as a mermaid anyway, so they could have purple hair, they could be anything.” I always think the hair of a character reflects something going on inside that character in the arc of the story. Ariel’s hair is a constant reminder of her fiery personality.

I was doing a lot of exploration on what [Ursula] should look like and started doing some research on Divine. First we were thinking of something more like Maleficent, very feminine in her stature and power. Divine had this whole other power. I started to do some drawings, and like “Oh, wow, that’s kind of scary. Can we actually do that?” We ended up pushing further in making her (Ursula) a little bit more fun.

Menken: In “Kiss the Girl,” you have the character of this little crab who’s playing the crooner. He’s playing Harry Belafonte. The choice of making Sebastian a Caribbean crab from Trinidad added so much richness to the characterization and to his sense of his manhood and his sense of the Latin lover in him even though he’s a tiny, little red crab.

Samuel E. Wright (voice of Sebastian): If it wasn’t for [Ashman], I wouldn’t have done this [film]. He wasn’t looking for a Jamaican accent, he was looking for the sound of the way he was raised in Trinidad and when I came and [auditioned] he said to me “What are you doing?” and I said “You gonna throw me out?” and he said “Where did you learn that?” I said “In college” and he said “That’s the accent I wanted to have for Sebastian.” So, Sebastian has never said “Ya, man,” if anything, he said “Yes, man.” Quite different.

The original fairy tale, written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, had a much darker ending, and the Disney team made other critical changes to the story of a mermaid who falls in love with a hunky prince.

Ron Clements (co-director and co-writer): The mermaid dies at the end of the story. There was an addendum that he added where she got a sort of an immortal soul out of it, but it’s still pretty sad. The prince ends up marrying this other woman who was not the girl that saved his life and he never actually knows that it was the mermaid. The other changes we made were that the sea king (King Triton) is not really in the story very much at all. And the other big thing that we did was the sea witch (Ursula) in the Andersen tale is not really as villainous, but we made her much more of a villain.

“The Little Mermaid” nearly failed to get a greenlight. Michael Eisner, the then CEO of the Walt Disney Company, first rejected Clements’ idea for “The Little Mermaid” in a brainstorming session deemed “The Gong Show.” Then, a few days later, the Disney chief changed his mind.


Clements: [For “The Gong Show”] Michael [Eisner] said “Just pitch your best idea” and they went around the table and when they got to me I pitched “The Little Mermaid.” It got “gonged” just from those three words because they were developing a sequel to “Splash” at the time and they felt like it might be too close. They actually “un-gonged” it a couple days later.

The dynamic writing duo of Menken and Ashman worked side-by-side on movies like “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and for some of “Aladdin” until Ashman’s death in 1991. For the 1989 mermaid classic, the two wanted to push Disney into an age where animated movies could move like musicals. The two kept classic Disney princess movie themes intact, but made it their own.

Menken: [Ashman and I] were always in the same room. In the case of “The Little Mermaid,” it was looking at classic Disney in the vocabulary. Once Howard had the idea that we should make Sebastian not a stuffy English crab, but a Caribbean crab, that opened up a treasure trove of possible stylistic influences and calypso and reggae informed a lot of the storytelling. And then for Chef Louis, a little bit of French musical, but it was all very specific musical vocabulary that we drew from.

Recording the movie’s legendary soundtrack and dialogue led to some memorable moments. Lyricist Ashman entered the studio to give the vocalist Jodi Benson (Ariel) personal advice and critique. Samuel E. Wright went to great extremes to get in the mindset of his crab character.

Keane: Howard Ashman came in [the studio] because Jodi was performing “Part of Your World” and Howard wasn’t happy with it, so he walked in and he had them turn off all the lights in the recording room except for a little lamp over the sheet music. Howard was telling Jodi “You are not performing this, you aren’t singing for the people in the back of the theater” because her background had been as a theatrical actress. He said, “You are alone in your grotto on this,” and he’s whispering and Jodi’s just looking at Howard. Then Jodi sang again and it had a whole different feeling to it.

Wright: I was always alone [in the studio] because we had decided that Sebastian was only about seven inches big, so my only relationship with everybody else was that they were all larger than me. We placed the microphone at least three to five feet above my head and I would shout at the microphone because I was on the floor.

When first screening “The Little Mermaid,” children in the audience became restless during one of Ariel’s big numbers, so Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was then the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, told Menken and Ashman to make some difficult cuts.

Menken: We were finding that when [the film] got to “Part of Your World” there was a lot of restlessness and squirming. Clearly, it was not holding [the audience] and Jeffrey said, “Well, look, we should just lose that song.” And Howard knew that song was a huge tentpole for the kind of projects we wanted to be writing for Disney. You have to have dramatic tension, and so once we put in that Ariel was being witnessed by Sebastian, then that held the audience and saved us from losing the number. To not have her inner journey expressed in song really robbed it of being a legitimate musical. We fought Jeffrey on that and Jeffrey is a very smart man and said “Ok, try it” and it worked.

When “The Little Mermaid” started production, the studio was in transition. Eisner and Katzenberg had recently joined the Disney team without having much knowledge of animation. The animators moved to a leaky warehouse in Glendale, and the team experienced a considerable amount of pressure to get the mermaid movie right.

Clements: It was an exciting period, but it was also a scary period because we felt like the future was uncertain. [Eisner and Katzenberg] came in and they didn’t know very much about animation. Michael put Jeffrey in charge of animation and he was a fast learner. People were excited, but they were also scared. We felt like the stakes were high. Disney animation had gone through a fair amount of ups and downs by that point. The film had great potential and it was a great opportunity, but it was really important to get it right.

They moved us all off the lot into a warehouse in Glendale which was kind of scary for us at the time. It felt like we were being exiled to some degree. Where we were working was not quite as nice as what we were used to with the Disney Animation building, there were leaking roofs and where we did the storyboarding in these trailers, every time you opened the door, the building would buckle up and down. I think somehow that helped bring everybody together.

Keane’s animated interpretation of Ariel wasn’t a hit with everyone on the studio lot.

Keane: We had the opening night and showed the movie. Afterwards, my mentors, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who have now retired… I was very interested to hear their reaction. I ran up to them and I asked “So, what’d you think?” and Frank and Ollie have always been very honest, but never really free with compliments. Ollie said “Well, we wouldn’t have done it that way,” and I said “What do you you mean?” “Well, Glen,” Frank said, “There were just some expressions that were kind of ugly.” and Ollie said “That’s right, she was ugly. If you look at Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, every frame of that film she’s pretty. The princesses were pretty.” And I was strangely really happy to hear this. I realized that anytime I had a choice to go pretty or real, I always chose real. Even if it means for a few frames you have to scrunch the face up somewhere. It wasn’t necessarily appealing, but it was real. That became a mark of our generation. It was not the idealism of maybe the ’30s and ’40s and ’50s.

Animators faced a number of challenges on “The Little Mermaid,” which took years to make on a small budget of around $18 million.

Mark Dindal (visual effects supervisor): In terms of [animating] weather, there’s the whole storm sequence when Ariel first finds Eric and the boat chases that storm and then it catches on fire. Then all of the powder kegs explode. With all those elements of rain and the waves, it reminded me of the end of “Pinocchio” with Monstro the Whale. They have a very complete archive of all the work that [Disney] has ever done, so I was able to go down there and study the way they had done those waves and was inspired by that.

Clements: The storm sequence itself was kind of a monster to animate. It took over a year to animate that one sequence. We had the most effects of any Disney film since “Fantasia” because every other water scene had to have effects of some kind, whether it was light refraction or bubbles and of course the hair always had to be moving underwater. The animation on the surface of the water was even more difficult than the underwater scenes because you’ve got the surface of the water always moving and the boats. In the storm sequence there’s also the rain and fire and then we have a lot of magic in the film.

Before the movie came out, Tyco toy manufacturing company (later acquired by Mattel) had some very specific complaints about Ariel’s new ‘do.

Clements: [The Tyco company was] horrified and they said that their toy research confirmed that redheaded dolls didn’t sell. We said “Well, she’s gonna be a redhead, sorry,” but they were so panicked that the very first Ariel dolls that were on the market at the time when the movie came out in ‘89, she was not a redhead. She had strawberry blonde hair. They actually had to remake those dolls because little girls wanted her to have the same hair color she had in the movie.

At the Oscars, Ashman approached Menken, saying that he had something to tell him.

Menken: Howard said “I’m really happy, but when we get back to New York we have to have a talk.” We got back two days later and I went to his house and he said “Well I’m sick, I’m HIV positive” and in those days it was “you’re dead.” We were doing “Beauty and the Beast” at that time. The writing of the “The Little Mermaid” in retrospect was a wonderful light, a dream come true, but the writing of “Beauty and the Beast” had that huge shadow on it. I now knew that Howard was dying and he never lived to see “Beauty and the Beast” or “Aladdin.”

Over the past 30 years, children have dressed up as Ariel, sung the film’s power ballads, and watched the movie over and over and over again.

Clements: Both John (Musker, co-director and co-writer) and I have had people come up to us and say “Thank you for my childhood” and that’s kind of weird, but I think for a certain generation, these films, not just Mermaid but particularly the big four of that period: “Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “Lion King,” certainly those films still resonate hugely. Now, those kids have grown up and they have kids of their own and [the movies] live on which is really gratifying because these films, they’re very hard to do. They take a long time, four to five years. A lot of very talented, very creative people are involved. It’s really nice when they live on.

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An italian article from Stile:

TEMPO LIBERO
Pubblicato il 27 Dicembre 2019
La Sirenetta compie 30 anni: 5 curiosità
In attesa del live action del 2020, ecco 5 piccoli/grandi segreti del classico della Disney

SALVO CAGNAZZO

Dopo l’incredibile successo degli ultimi mesi dei live action di Aladdin e Il Re Leone, la Disney riporta al cinema un altro grande classico. Parliamo de La Sirenetta, che è in fase di pre-produzione, ma di cui è ancora sconosciuta la data d’uscita. Poche le informazioni in nostro possesso: al momento si sa che nel cast ci saranno Halle Bailey nel ruolo di Ariel e Jonah Hauer-King in quello di Eric, le musiche saranno ancora una volta affidata ad Alan Menken (questa volta con la collaborazione di Lin-Manuel Miranda).

Un modo per festeggiare il compleanno del capolavoro d’animazione. Questo, infatti, uscì nelle sale statunitensi il 17 novembre 1989 ed è uno dei grandi classici natalizi da almeno due generazioni. Vincitore di due premi Oscar per la canzone originale e per la colonna sonora, La Sirenetta è considerato il primo lungometraggio animato del cosiddetto “Rinascimento Disney”, il periodo d’oro di tale industria cinematografica. Nel corso della sua prima distribuzione, incassò 84 milioni di dollari nel Nord America, e fino ad oggi ha raggiunto un incasso totale di 211 milioni di dollari. Ecco cinque curiosità riguardanti il film.

La protagonista de La Sirenetta
Il personaggio di Ariel è ispirato ad Alyssa Milano. All’epoca diciassettenne, era nota per la serie Casalingo Superpiù. In realtà i suoi capelli sarebbero dovuti essere biondi, proprio come i suoi, ma si è scelto il rosso innanzitutto perché si sposava meglio con il verde della coda, poi per evitare paragoni con la sirena del film Splash del 1984. A proposito di colore, questo blu-verde è stato realizzato appositamente per il film dal laboratorio di pittura della Disney.

La prima collaborazione tra Disney e Pixar
Il film segna di fatto la prima collaborazione tra Disney e gli studi Pixar, seppur a piccole dosi. Questi ultimi, infatti, attraverso il programma Computer Animation Production System, si sono occupati della scena finale e di altre brevi sequenze.

Oscar e colonna sonora
A firmare la colonna sonora, furono Alan Menken (per le musiche) e Howard Ashman (paroliere), al suo esordio per un film Disney. In seguito Menken dichiarò che non era soddisfatto di questo lavoro e che pensava sarebbe stato licenziato invece si aggiudicò due Oscar, uno per la Miglior canzone originale, In fondo al Mar, e uno per la Miglior colonna sonora. Una combo vinta anche per i lungometraggi di La Bella e la Bestia, Aladdin e Pocahontas.

Ursula e guest star
La strega del mare Ursula è ispirata all’attrice e drag queen Divine. E non è, come spesso ritenuto, una piovra, ma una Cecaelia, una creatura mitologica con la parte superiore di una donna e tentacoli al posto delle gambe. Tra le guest star d’eccezione del film “marino”, seppur fugacemente, anche Pippo, Paperino e Topolino.

Il primo esperimento con l’Home Video
Un ultimo appunto. Oltre ad essere stato campione d’incassi (fino ad allora), la Sirenetta segna anche un altro record. Per la prima volta l’azienda di Walt, infatti, investe nell’home video, seppur all’inizio con un po’ di riluttanza. Ebbene, ci avevano visto davvero lungo. Il film vendette 23 milioni di copie di VHS e, successivamente, altre 7 milioni di DVD.

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English Translation:

FREE TIME
Published on December 27th 2019
The Little Mermaid turns 30: 5 curiosities
Waiting for the 2020 live action, here are 5 small / big secrets of the Disney classic

After the incredible success of the last few months of the live action of Aladdin and The Lion King, Disney is bringing another great classic to the cinema. We are talking about La Sirenetta, which is in the pre-production phase, but whose release date is still unknown. Few information in our possession: at the moment it is known that in the cast there will be Halle Bailey in the role of Ariel and Jonah Hauer-King in that of Eric, the music will once again be entrusted to Alan Menken (this time with the collaboration of Lin -Manuel Miranda).

A way to celebrate the birthday of the animated masterpiece. This, in fact, was released in US theaters on November 17, 1989 and has been one of the great Christmas classics for at least two generations. Winner of two Oscar awards for the original song and the soundtrack, La Sirenetta is considered the first animated feature of the so-called "Disney Renaissance", the golden age of this film industry. During its first distribution, it grossed $ 84 million in North America, and has so far achieved total revenue of $ 211 million. Here are five curiosities regarding the film.

The protagonist of La Sirenetta
Ariel's character is inspired by Alyssa Milano. At the age of seventeen, she was known for the Casalingo Superpiù series. Actually her hair should have been blonde, just like hers, but red was chosen first because it was better suited to the green of the tail, then to avoid comparisons with the siren of the 1984 Splash film. Speaking of color, this blue-green was made specifically for the film by Disney's painting workshop.

The first collaboration between Disney and Pixar
The film actually marks the first collaboration between Disney and Pixar studios, albeit in small doses. The latter, in fact, through the Computer Animation Production System program, dealt with the final scene and other short sequences.

Oscar and soundtrack
To sign the soundtrack, were Alan Menken (for the music) and Howard Ashman (lyricist), on his debut for a Disney film. Menken later declared that he was not satisfied with this job and that he thought he would be fired instead he won two Oscars, one for the Best original song, Deep in the Sea, and one for the Best soundtrack. A combo also won for the feature films of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahontas.

Ursula and guest star
The sea witch Ursula is inspired by the Divine actress and drag queen. And it is not, as often believed, an octopus, but a Czechelia, a mythological creature with the upper part of a woman and tentacles instead of the legs. Among the exceptional guest stars of the "marine" film, albeit fleetingly, also Pippo, Donald and Mickey Mouse.

The first experiment with Home Video
One last note. In addition to being a blockbuster (until then), the Little Mermaid also marks another record. For the first time, Walt's company invests in home video, albeit at the beginning with a little reluctance. Well, they had seen us really long. The film sold 23 million copies of VHS and subsequently another 7 million DVDs.