Discover the best curiosities of The Little Mermaid, Disney’s live action film. All the details, fun facts, trivia, curiosities and easter eggs of the film are on this list. If you are a true fan of Disney and The Little Mermaid you need to know all the details and curiosities of the Disney movie.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
Like with the original La bella y la bestia (1991), this film was dedicated to the late Howard Ashman, who co-produced and co-wrote the songs from the original animated film. He also contributed some key scenes to the film’s screenplay, including Sebastian’s decision to help Ariel win the Prince’s heart.
Melissa McCarthy had no idea she could actually sing before production of this film. She was coached by vocal coach Eric Vetro to prepare for her role as Ursula, and did all of her own singing in the film.
According to costume designer Colleen Atwood, every merpeople accessory “had to be from the sea. For King Triton, we were trying to figure out how to make his crown look like a crown but not like it was a crown from above the sea. I saw these really giant shark teeth in a magazine, and I was like ‘Oh my god, we should make his crown out of shark teeth’.”
Contrary to the animated film, Sebastian has the correct number of legs (ten including two pinchers). The animated Sebastian had eight (including the pinchers), because at that time that was much easier to animate.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
The human world was designed to look like “1830s-meets-Caribbean world”.
Costume designer Colleen Atwood explained why Ariel does not sport shell bras: “I just think we wanted to have a more fishlike quality to the girls. Having them all plonk seashells on their breasts seemed like a weird way to go. And when you start putting shells on real bodies, it’s hard to make them look good, believe me. We went with a bralette that still has a fish vibe but wasn’t as aggressive as a shell bra.”
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?”.
Ursula and Triton as siblings in this remake was cut from the 1989 animated film, but it was included in the 2007 Broadway musical of the film instead. In the musical, Triton had banished Ursula from his kingdom and disowned her as a sibling for practicing black magic, which is what motivates her actions in the Broadway musical.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
When asked about possibly starring a continuation for this film, Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King actually remembered the lesser celebrated Disney sequel La sirenita 2: Regreso al mar (2000), considering a similar plot (with Ariel and Eric’s daughter Melody). Bailey was born six months before Disney released “Return to the Sea”. In the same interview she added that she loves the sequel, while King joked that Eric could become a merman in a future installment.
Jacob Tremblay was 13 years old when he voiced Flounder back in 2020.
Three shades of red were applied on Halle Bailey’s hair, with loose pieces of hair added to allow it to float and “dance” underwater. Ariel now sports a more natural red hair instead of the vibrant tone from the original animation. Bailey and hair dresser Camille Friend discarded using wigs from the start in favor of featuring her natural hair, as to stay true to Bailey’s Black heritage.
The “Part of Your World” sequence was filmed over the course of three days. 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.”
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
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 of how heavy her locs and hair extensions turned out in water.
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 had seen the film over one hundred times.
Exterior shots took place in Sardinia, Italy.
Rob Marshall invited Halle Bailey to audition after he saw a live performance of hers. She was the first person to read for the part and, according to Marshall, Bailey’s rendition of “Part of Your World” during her audition left him in tears.
The remake is 52 minutes longer than the original 1989 movie, which ran for 83 minutes.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
Max is now a Bearded Collie instead of an Old English Sheepdog. This is not the first time Disney swapped these two dog breeds for a remake of a Disney classic. The first was in The Shaggy Dog (2006), where a Bearded Collie was used in that film which was a remake of the original The Shaggy Dog (1959), which had a Old English Sheepdog.
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: El despertar de las bestias (2023) during a Dolby Cinema screening of Guardianes de la Galaxia (vol. 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.
Rob Marshall and Halle Bailey used Yentl (1983) as a reference for Bailey’s portrayal of Ariel. According to Bailey, “Barbra Streisand had these beautiful moments in her head where a song would play and it would be an inner monologue as well. So I really studied that film”.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
Melissa McCarthy admitted she was in tears the first time she heard Halle Bailey’s version of “Part of Your World.”
Two songs from the original 1989 film are removed from the 2023 remake: “Daughters of Triton” and “Les Poissons”.
Daveed Diggs (Sebastian) co-authored the 2019 novel “The Deep”, about an underwater society built by the water-breathing descendants (merpeople) of pregnant slaves thrown overboard from slave ships. The story is inspired by a song written by Diggs, who also narrates the audiobook version.
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.
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’s. In this version, the sisters’ names do not start with the letter “A”. They only end with the letter “A”.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
Lin-Manuel Miranda has written lyrics for three additional songs for the film. The music of the new songs is still written by Alan Menken.
A film adaptation of “The Little Mermaid” from Universal Pictures was announced in 2015 with Chloë Grace Moretz in the lead role. The actress described the film as “darker” and more like the original Hans Christian Andersen tale. Sofia Coppola was set to direct the film but dropped out due to creative differences, being replaced by Rebecca Thomas. Production ended up being scrapped.
Production was temporarily halted in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming resumed in early 2021 in London, England.
Jacob Tremblay (Flounder) previously voiced the title role in Luca (2021), another film about sea creatures wanting to live on land.
Second Disney Princess from a live action movie where the main lead is black. The first was Brandy Norwood in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (1997), though the latter was not actually a remake of the animated film.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
Scuttle is portrayed as a female northern gannet diving bird, instead of a male seagull as in the original, in order to feature the character in underwater scenes.
Every Disney film for which Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote music and/or lyrics has featured voice work by one of his Broadway collaborators: Christopher Jackson who starred in both ‘In the Heights’ and ‘Hamilton’ provided the singing voice for Moana’s father in ‘Moana’ (2016); Olga Merediz who played Abuella Claudia in both the stage and film versions of ‘In the Heights’ (2021) provided the singing voice for Abuella in ‘Encanto’ (2021); Daveed Diggs played Lafayette/Jefferson in ‘Hamilton’ voices Sebastian in ‘The Little Mermaid’ (2023).
During “Part of Your World,” Ariel opens a wooden chest of pocket watches when she refers to having twenty “thingumabobs.” In the animated version, thingumabobs were corkscrews. A corkscrew falls on Sebastian’s head during the first scene with Scuttle.
Halle Bailey was a regular supporting cast member on Grown-ish (2018). She left the series after Season 3 to film this movie, and her character was subsequently written out of the show. 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.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
Terry Crews expressed interest in playing King Triton.
The movie introduces original characters not seen in La sirenita (1989), including Queen Selina, portrayed by Noma Dumezweni.
Jonah Hauer-King won the role of Prince Eric when he and Cameron Cuffe had tested for the role.
Filming was originally scheduled to begin in London, England between late March and early April 2020; however, it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Ariel and Eric are stargazing, Eric teaches Ariel about constellations and their names. After he makes a few attempts at guessing her name, Ariel points out the constellation of Aries, and when Eric says the name, she gently shushes him with a finger, shortening it to “Arie”. She then playfully drags her finger down his lip as he repeats it to achieve the “-el” sound at the end. When he finally spells it all out, he smiles and tells her it’s a beautiful name. Coincidently, Halle Bailey who plays Ariel, her zodiac sign is Aries because she was born on March 27th.
Unlike previous Disney movies and live action remakes, this film does not feature a new track as a single or a pop version sung by artists other than the actors. Although there are recent versions of “Part of Your World” sung by Miley Cyrus, Jessie J, and Carly Rae Jepsen; “Under the Sea” sung by Raven-Symoné, and “Kiss the Girl” sung by Colbie Caillat and Ashley Tisdale, all released previously by Disney.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
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.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda previously wrote the songs for Vaiana (2016), in which the character of Sebastian is referenced in a post-credits scene.
To prepare for her role as Ursula, Melissa McCarthy and the makeup team had to block her eyebrows, stencil penciled eyebrows in, install a wig and add false eyelashes, along with contour.
The looks of Flounder and Sebastian (brought from the animated version as sentient animals) generated criticism from reviewers and fans alike. Jacob Tremblay defended Flounder’s looks, stating: “I was shown the design when I went in for the audition and I saw the movie last night and, I have to say that I think it really, really worked. I think that [the producers] were geniuses and they knew exactly what they were doing.”
Actresses of various ethnicities were tested for the lead role.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
Rob Marshall’s second Disney production featuring mermaids, after Piratas del Caribe: En mareas misteriosas (2011). He had his “Little Mermaid” crew watching the film for reference, explaining: “That [Pirates scene] already had our taste in terms of look and what you can achieve. We were explaining how we achieved it, too – when we were using visual effects, when we were using some kind of costumes, and things like that. We just broke it down with our entire team. That was really actually helpful.”
For the Brazilian version, voice actress Larissa Cardoso dubs for Perla (Lorena Andrea). Aged 14, Cardoso dubbed and sang for Melody in La sirenita 2: Regreso al mar (2000), after being selected in a contest promoted by a Disney-themed TV show. The actress also voiced Isabela in Encanto (2021).
One of the arguments that backlashers of Halle Bailey’s (a black actress) casting as Ariel proposed was its “inaccuracy” in the Danish origin of “The Little Mermaid” tale. 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 happened 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.
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
Ariel’s hair was made of 30-inch extensions, which took 14-15 hours to integrate into Halle Bailey’s hair. The total cost of the hair was over $150,000.
Director Rob Marshall’s fourth Disney film, after Piratas del Caribe: En mareas misteriosas (2011), Into the Woods (2014), and El regreso de Mary Poppins (2018). His first film Chicago (2002) was released by Miramax, then a subsidiary of Disney.
This is the fourth Disney live-action remake that has the same composer as the original, after La bella y la bestia (Beauty and the Beast) (2017), AladdÃn (2019), and El rey león (2019).
Second movie collaboration for Daveed Diggs and Jacob Tremblay after Wonder (2017).
This is Melissa McCarthy’s second Disney movie, after The Kid (2000).
50 fun Facts about The Little Mermaid
When stars Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy introduced the live-action Little Mermaid trailer during the 2023 Oscar ceremony on ABC, a network Disney owns, filmmakers Phil Lord and 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.”
After Halle Bailey got the part of Ariel, there was considerable controversy on the internet. The hashtag #NotMyAriel started trending on social media accounts, as several people criticized the casting choice for Ariel and continued to do so.