The Little Mermaid Trivia | 40 facts about the new movie

«The Little Mermaid» is a 2023 American musical fantasy film directed by Rob Marshall from a screenplay written by David Magee.

Let’s find out more about the movie!

1. Singer Lizzo auditioned and campaigned for the role of Ursula. She even dressed like Ursula and sang “Poor Unfortunate Souls” on her Instagram page, but ultimately Melissa McCarthy got the role. Later, Lizzo and McCarthy met at an event and they discussed the audition. Not knowing Lizzo auditioned, her response to Lizzo was “why the hell did I get the part”?
2. Maya Hawke had auditioned to play Ariel. She considers not landing the role to be the biggest disappointment of her career so far.
3. Halle Bailey joked that when she recreated the famous ‘hair flip’ scene (where Ariel swims to the surface and flips her hair after her human transformation), she nearly broke her neck because her wig was so heavy.
4. Melissa McCarthy admitted she was in tears the first time she heard Halle Bailey’s version of “Part of Your World.”
5. The “Part of Your World” sequence was filmed over the course of three days.
6. Halle Bailey described filming the segment as “the most beautiful experience of my life. Feeling all of the feelings that she feels. Her passion. Her discomfort. Everything that she was experience was so exciting for me to play. Just getting to sing a song I’ve loved ever since I was a child was really exciting.”
7. Harry Styles revealed on Capital Breakfast that although he met with the director of the film, Rob Marshall, there were scheduling conflicts which meant he couldn’t take the part. He said: “I think it’s obviously going to be an amazing film… But they shoot for so long and I wanna tour next year, maybe. I haven’t announced that yet, but yeah, it just didn’t quite line up.”
8. Production on the film was temporarily halted in March 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, filming resumed in early 2021 in London.
9. Jonah Hauer-King won the role of Prince Eric when he and Cameron Cuffe had tested for the role.
10. Rob Marshall invited Halle Bailey to audition after he saw a live performance of hers.
11. She was the first person to read for the part and, according to Marshall, her rendition of “Part of Your World” during her audition left him in tears.
12. Contrary to the animated film, Sebastian has the correct amount of legs: 10 (including two pinchers). The animated Sebastian had eight (including the pinchers), because at that time that was much easier to animate.
13. Lin-Manuel Miranda has written lyrics for four additional songs for the film. The music of the new songs is still written by Alan Menken.
14. After Halle Bailey got the part of Ariel, there was a spark of controversy on the internet. The hashtag #NotMyAriel started trending on social media accounts, as some people criticized the casting choice for Ariel.
15. Terry Crews expressed interest in playing King Triton.
16. Exterior shots took place in Italy.
17. The movie introduces new original characters, not seen in The Little Mermaid (1989), including Queen Selina, portrayed by Noma Dumezweni.
18. When stars Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy introduced the live-action The Little Mermaid trailer during the 2023 Oscar ceremony on ABC, a network Disney owns, filmmakers Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and others were outraged and responded on Twitter. Lord called it a blatant marketing move that “undermined” the integrity of the awards program.” Miller called it “depressing” and that it “feels like it diminishes the the whole enterprise.” Cinco Paul simply called it “gross” and added “boo to everyone responsible.”
19. On May 5, 2023, a video of the film’s trailer and its audio (specifically the portion of Halle Bailey’s Ariel singing “Part of Your World (Reprise)”) playing simultaneously over the visuals of the trailer for Transformers (2023) during a Dolby Cinema screening of Guardians of The Galaxy 3 (2023) at an AMC Theater in Franklin, Tennessee, due to a film protector error, went viral on social media, with users enthused at the incidental crossover and noting how both trailers seemed to be perfectly in sync together as they played.
20. Fans wanted Megan Fox, Anne Hathaway or Kacey Musgraves for the role of Vanessa. However, none of them were contacted by Walt Disney Studios for the part.
21. Asher Angel and Gavin Leatherwood auditioned for Prince Eric.
22. RuPaul revealed on his podcast that he was considered for the role of Sebastian but did not get the part after not wanting to play the character with a Caribbean accent like in the original film.
23. One of the arguments backlashers of Halle Bailey’s (a black actress) casting as Ariel proposed was its “inaccuracy” the Danish origin of “The Little Mermaid” tale.
24. In response, reviewers have pointed out that indigenous and black merpeople, or half-human, half-fish deities have also being represented in many cultures (for instance, African beliefs) long before European mythologies were disseminated, or Hans Christian Andersen’s conception of the tale. The deities Yemoja and Mami Wata, both water spirits, are two examples.
25. Scuttle is portrayed as a female diving bird, instead of a male seagull, as in the original, in order to feature the character in underwater scenes.
26. Christian Navarro auditioned for the role of Prince Eric after campaigning on Twitter for the part.
27. Fans wanted Meryl Streep, Lady Gaga or Bette Midler for the role of Ursula, but none of them were contacted for the role. Midler instead chose to work on Hocus Pocus 2 (2022), also from Walt Disney Studios.
28. The names of King Triton’s daughters were changed for the live action film, coincidentally in the animated film all of his daughters names begin and end with the letter “A” except for Ariel. In this version, the sisters names do not start with the letter “A”. They only end with the letter “A”.
29. Jacob Tremblay was 13 years old when he voiced Flounder back in 2020.
30. The song Les Poissons is not featured in the film neither is Chef Louis.
31. The film’s director, Rob Marshall, also directed Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), which featured many mermaids, and their upper halves resembled beautiful women of all nationalities.
32. According to interviews in relation to The Little Mermaid (1989), Melissa McCarthy (Ursula) admitted that when she used to mind kids, she would play the film every night for them. She said that she seen the film over one hundred times.
33. To prepare for her role as Ursula, (Melissa McCarthy) and the make up team had to block her eyebrows, stencil penciled eyebrows in, install a wig, add false eyelashes along with contour.
34. Halle Bailey was 18, Jonah Hauer-King was 22, Jacob Tremblay was 13 and Melissa McCarthy was 50 during filming due to the COVID pandemic in March 2020.
35. Halle Balle was a regular supporting cast member on Grown-ish (2018).
36. She left the series after Season 3 to film this movie, and her character was subsequently written out of the show.
37. During season 4, the explanation behind Bailey’s absence was that her character, Sky Forster, was competing as a runner in the 2021 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
38. Second Disney Princess from a live action movie where the main lead is black. The first was Brandy in Rodger and Hamerstein’s Cinderella (1997).
39. The remake is 51 minutes longer than the original 1989 movie. Which ran for 79 minutes.
40. Two songs from the original 1989 film are removed from the 2023 remake: “Daughters of Triton” and “Les Poissons”.