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The Little Mermaid live-action remake finally has a trailer. The first footage from Disney's latest makeover of a classic cartoon debuted during a mega panel at D23, the Disney-focused, Comic Con-esque event taking place in LA.
The trailer debuts our first look at Halle Bailey's Ariel, the iconic singing mermaid princess. The trailer is slight and does not feature any other characters. However, in the movie, she will be joined by an all-star cast including Melissa McCarthy as the dastardly Ursula, Javier Bardem as Ariel's father, King Triton, and Daveed Diggs voicing everyone's favorite crustacean, Sebastian.
The Little Mermaid has been directed by Rob Marshall, who, after coming to international recognition with Chicago, has become something of a Disney-stalwart, directing Mary Poppins Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Into the Woods. He revealed during the D23 panel that there will be four new songs in The Little Mermaid, written by Alan Menken and Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda.
“I have a very special connection to this film, because when it opened in 1989, we could hear people singing again in a movie," he said. "It felt like fate."
The movie was first announced back in 2016, with Miranda revealed as a producer. The next year, Marshall came on board, though it wouldn't be until 2019 when casting began, due to Disney trying to work out how to translate the original underwater cartoon to the screen.
Filming was initially meant to commence in April 2020, but due to the COVID pandemic, that was put on pause until principal photography started in January 2021, and the movie wrapped in July that year. It's been over a year since then, but D23 proved too much of a good opportunity to pass releasing the first proper trailer.
The Little Mermaid arrives in cinemas on May 26, 2023. In the meantime, check out our review of Disney's live-action Pinocchio remake, which just launched on Disney Plus.
