A new teaser for Disney’s The Little Mermaid remake reveals the live-action version of the film’s opening shark attack. The opening of the original 1989 animated film features Ariel and her fish friend Flounder exploring a sunken ship while looking for treasures from the human world. However, their search is interrupted when a shark swims through the window of the ship and begins to chase them down.
Today on their official Twitter account, Walt Disney Studios shared a brand-new sneak peek at The Little Mermaid 2023, starring Halle Bailey as Ariel and Jacob Tremblay as Flounder.
The new teaser contains plenty of footage that has already been seen before, including Ariel singing “Part of Your World.” However, the first half of the clip offers a close look at the new film’s recreation of the opening sequence, rendered extra terrifying by the photorealistic CGI shark on the loose.
How Much Of The Little Mermaid Will Directly Recreate The Original?
With the film set to hit theaters soon on May 26, Disney is reluctant to share too many details about how the story will be different from the original film. The Little Mermaid trailer showed that quite a few iconic scenes will be recreated, however. This includes the musical numbers “Part Of Your World” and “Kiss the Girl,” written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken.
This shark attack also shows that moments that are less set in stone than the musical numbers will also be recreated. However, the new film also promises to include plenty of new material. Some of that will come from changes that the filmmakers made in order to update the film for modern audiences, including making Ariel’s love for Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) less of a motivating force for the character.
Much like its fellow Disney live-action remake Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid is considerably longer than the original film, by about 52 minutes. Some of this time will be taken up with new songs, which have been co-written by Hamilton and Moana‘s Lin-Manuel Miranda. However, this still leaves room for plenty of scenes that fans of the original film have never seen before.
Source: Walt Disney Studios/Twitter
