'The Little Mermaid': How Halle Bailey's Representation for Young Black Girls 'Heals' Her (Exclusive)

The Little Mermaid has been criticized by a prominent media diversity advocate for failing to acknowledge the horrors of slavery in the Caribbean.

Although mermaids might conjure up images of long, flowing, low-maintenance waves, it seems the actual cost of turning actress Halle Bailey into one was a little more on the expensive side. For the actress’ appearance as Ariel in Disney’s hit live action remake of The Little Mermaid, hairstylist Camille Friend revealed the true cost of getting those mermaid-worthy waves, and you could buy a house for the price.

J. Kim Murphy The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has made changes to its rating system for Disney’s live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” after the new release became the latest target for “review bombing” — a practice in which a production is flooded with negative reviews by users who wield multiple accounts or employ bots to create new ones. Since its release, “The Little Mermaid” has garnered 41,000 user ratings on IMDb. While the film has earned a positive 7.0 (weighted) average score, more than 39% of the ratings are 1 star, the lowest possible option. IMDb has placed a notice on the film’s ratings page, writing that the site’s “rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied.” This message has been employed before by IMDb in the cast of other atypical user score patterns.

K.J. Yossman Jonah Hauer-King can currently be seen swimming up a storm alongside Halle Bailey in Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” but for his next project he’s part of a different world – “World on Fire.” The PBS and BBC drama series has released first look images from its upcoming second season, showing Hauer-King as a grimy pilot called Harry in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. In the show, which was created by Peter Bowker, he is joined by “The Crown’s” Lesley Manville, Parker Sawyers (“A Discovery of Witches”) and Eugénie Derouand (“The Advent Calendar”).

SPOILER ALERT: This interview includes details about Disney’s The Little Mermaid

It’s safe to say that Paloma Faith isn’t a fan of the new The Little Mermaid movie, with Halle Bailey in the lead role.

had a multiverse long before they acquired Marvel: An unofficial House of Mouse detective sent shockwaves through Disney fandom after floating a rather dark fan theory that links the 1989 animated “Little Mermaid” with 1953’s “Peter Pan,” as seen in a TikTok clip with 6.6 million views.“I can’t believe I just noticed this In The Little Mermaid,” self-proclaimed “movie detective” Ivan Mars exclaimed in the caption to the vid. He frequently posts film-based conspiracy theories to his 2 million TikTok followers like some sort of cinematic “Da Vinci Code” — although users point out that many of his theories originated on Reddit.The latest target for Mars’ cinematic tinfoil hat was the animated “Little Mermaid,” a film that’s been revived in the public conscious with the release of the divisive, live-action adaptation starring Halle Bailey, 23, which took home $48.3 million on its opening night Friday.He specifically posited that Ariel’s mother Athena — who was killed by pirates, per the 2008 sequel “the Little Mermaid III” — was also in “Peter Pan.” Accompanying footage shows a scene from the 1953 classic, in which Pan cavorts with a red-headed dead ringer for Ariel in the Mermaid Lagoon, which coincidentally shares a name with the place where Athena was attacked in the aforementioned sequel.Due to the 36-year gap between “The Little Mermaid” and “Peter Pan,” fans have speculated that a young Athena would’ve probably looked a lot like her daughter at the time, according to Reddit.And given her demise at the hands of pirates, fans suspected that Pan baddie Captain Hook may been to blame.

practicing to be a mermaid since she was a kid) or belting the ballad “Part of Your World.” Instead, she lists her castmates’ musical numbers: “Jonah [Hauer-King, who plays Prince Eric, his] song is wonderful — ‘Wild Uncharted Waters’ — his performance of that is iconic. And then ‘The Scuttlebutt’ is amazing.

A whole new generation of little girls are falling in love with “The Little Mermaid” and that’s thanks to Halle Bailey.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor To bring Disney’s iconic mermaid princess Ariel to life in “The Little Mermaid,” costume designer Colleen Atwood constructed a life-sized tail that went from star Halle Bailey’s chest all the way down past her legs. “We made it to scale and 3D silk-screened the tail and painted onto that so you could get the nuance of the colors,” Atwood says. “We used different layers of sheer material, which gave the tail and scales an iridescent effect.” Her biggest challenge was blending the tail’s scales into Bailey’s skin. “I solved that by putting little fins made of fabric so there was a delineation between where the fish ended and the skin began,” she says.

The Little Mermaid” is making quite the splash at the domestic box office this weekend, with an opening day total of $38 million. The fantasy, which is opening in 4,320 theaters, is expected to gross between $120 million and $130 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend. The musical remake, starring Halle Bailey as the mermaid princess Ariel, took in $10.3 million in previews on Thursday, ranking as the seventh-highest haul for a movie rated G or PG. That puts the film on track to gross well over $100 million over the holiday weekend. With a $250 million production budget, “The Little Mermaid” must bait box office success in order to make a reasonable return.

In a blink and you’ll maybe miss it moment, the original Ariel, Jodi Benson, pops up in the new live action version of The Little Mermaid.

 gives audiences a mix of their favorite classics with modern tweaks, including three new songs and several updates to the soundtrack's iconic tunes.The music reflects the film's refreshed story, which director Rob Marshall, producer John DeLuca, and screenwriter David Magee have explained they tweaked to implement specific changes showcasing a more modern Disney princess, addressing criticism that the original film featured a young woman who was too wrapped up in a man, and giving Ariel more agency.The soundtrack features the vocal talents of the film's new cast, including GRAMMY-nominated singer Halle Bailey as the titular mermaid, Princess Ariel, Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, and Javier Bardem as King Triton, with Daveed Diggs as the voice of Sebastian the crab, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, and Awkwafina as Scuttle.Lin-Manuel Miranda, who teamed up with legendary composer-songwriter Alan Menken to write the film's new songs, previously told ET that «getting to write music for these characters that are probably the reason I started writing musicals in the first place, was actually easier than I thought.»«But the hardest part was my own intimidation working with Alan Menken, and that was entirely self-imposed,» acknowledged Miranda, who also serves as a producer on the film, alongside Marc Platt. «But when it came to how these characters speak and what they say, I've known that all my life.

is giving viewers the classic fairytale with several modern-day tweaks. The Rob Marshall-directed musical stars Halle Bailey as the titular, headstrong princess, a drastic departure from her previous depiction that initially garnered racist backlash.But Bailey's casting is only one of the changes made to the new live-action adaptation, which also stars Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, and Javier Bardem as King Triton, with Daveed Diggs as the voice of Sebastian the crab, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, and Awkwafina as Scuttle.Here are 15 ways the remake differs from the original.

Khloe Kardashian threw an incredible private screening of Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, a day before the official release of the movie. The highly-anticipated reboot of the 1989 animated film is set to be released in the US and UK on Friday May 26, with Halle Bailey starring as Ariel.

Jonah Hauer-King is the latest actor to become a Disney Prince, but he faced stiff competition for the part!

Disney’s remake of The Little Mermaid has been released – check it out below.Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago), the live-action remake stars Halle Bailey as Ariel, alongside Jonah Hauer-King as Eric, Daveed Diggs as the voice of Sebastian, Awkwafina as the voice of Scuttle and Jacob Tremblay as the voice of Flounder.Other cast members include Javier Bardem as King Triton, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula and Noma Dumezweni as new character Queen Selina, who is Eric’s mother.Alan Menken, who scored and co-wrote songs for the 1989 original, returned to compose the soundtrack for the remake. Along with reworking original classics, Menken co-wrote four new songs with Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In The Heights).Those four new songs include a rap-led track called ‘The Scuttlebutt’ for Awkwafina, a new song for Ariel titled ‘For The First Time’ and Prince Eric’s ‘Wild Uncharted Waters’.You can check out the full tracklist and stream the soundtrack below.Speaking to Deadline about adding a new song for Ariel, Marshall said: “Ariel had one song, and we had to hear more from her, even though she loses her voice to become a human.

The live-action version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey as Ariel and Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, is now in theaters.

 when she was five, . “When I saw her, [I was] like, ‘She’s so beautiful; I want to be a mermaid too.’ She didn’t look like me, but I was okay with that because it was what I was used to at the time.” The next generation doesn't have to see things that way, though, and videos of with whom they identified have flooded the internet since Bailey was cast. “When I saw those [videos] for the first time, I just cried,” Bailey says.

The Little Mermaid,” there is a sense that a true loss of innocence is on the brink. In this new live-action adaptation things are not as bubblegum sweet and bright as the last time we visited Ariel’s story.