The Little Mermaid live action re-make

I don't like The Little Mermaid but Alan Menken/Lin-Manuel Miranda co-writing songs sounds like a dream.

LMM's involvement scares me.

I really hope they don't go for Meryl Streep.

Susan Sarandon might be good after Enchanted but I don't know if she could sing Poor Unfortunate Souls convincingly.

I wonder how much they'll try and make her look like the cartoon or if they'll go with the stage version of Ursula.

Please no.

I saw the Pete's Dragon remake today (actually excellent- very heartfelt) and they showed the preview for the new Disney film Moana that The Rock as the male lead and has Lin-Manuel Miranda doing the music.

Looks like they have found their Ariel:


At first I thought it was an odd choice, because of her color. Then I started to look up many clips of her.

She does have this certain quality in her voice that reminds me of the old Disney classics (Snow white, Cinderella, Ariel), and her type/balance between the sweetness and rebellious teenager seems to be fitting too.

All the previous options mentioned for the role didn't have any of that and sounded uninteresting to me. This could actually work.

I wonder how it would be if it had been the other way around, and for example, Sebastian would be played by a white dude. How would people react on that? That is a good way to check if people think in equality or not.

I also have to add that I think that the current blackwashing in films is getting extremely out of hand, and often feels forced, as if it's very obvious that the are better fitting candidates for a role out there, but I am objective and think in this case, the girl kind of fits the role, voice and type-wise.

This is no different than colourblind casting in theatre. If the character's race doesn't inform the character's decisions/experience/story then it doesn't matter and can be played by anyone. Ariel's race etc. doesn't have any impact on her as a character so I don't see why she shouldn't be played by a person of colour. I'm sure people are attached to her classic look but this is a remake and frankly it's nice to see one of the Disney remakes doing something different with the opportunity (for now the only one that sounds drastically different is Mulan though). I'd much rather these remakes do something new with the story than just hash out the same plot beats with a new lick of paint because then at least something vaguely original can come of them.

Oh god, it's "how can they cast Norm Lewis as Triton" all over again.........

Not sure how I feel about this one to be honest. I think it depends on how I look at this new film.

As a brand new film - absolutely fine. She has a beautiful singing voice and will look great as a mermaid.

As an adaptation of the original film - not so keen. She doesn't look like that Ariel. Find a shade of red that works for her and it'll help, though.

Of course, basically every option I've seen who does look like the original Ariel would have been a terrible, terrible choice. Some people on Twitter are saying it should have been Ariana Grande, and anything that avoids that as a possibility is a very good thing. At least this time they've cast someone who can sing without so much autotune that they sound like a 90s Cher song. Yes, I'm looking at you, Emma Watson.

It's amazing how casting a white straight person is never a political act.

Yes those many, many Disney characters of colour, we're overwhelmed with them aren't we.