Disney’s The Little Mermaid is projected to bring in $100 million in North America over its opening weekend Friday to Sunday, Variety and Deadline reported Wednesday, making the live-action remake one of the biggest releases this year, but still well below blockbusters The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Film Review – The Little Mermaid
Disney’s live-action remake of “The Little [+] © 2022 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
KEY FACTS
After nearly three years of production on a $250 million budget, The Little Mermaid opens Thursday at roughly 4,300 theaters in North America, where it’s reportedly expected to make $100 million through Sunday night and $120 million by the end of the Monday holiday.
If projections hold up, the remake of Disney’s 1989 classic would follow other 2023 releases like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to surpass $100 million during its opening weekend, though it’s a ways away from the Mario Bros. Movie’s $146 million opening.
That would also put it in the middle of Disney’s recent live-action remakes, well behind 2019’s The Lion King ($191 million) and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast ($174 million), but more than double 2019’s Dumbo ($45 million).
Worldwide, the highly anticipated remake, directed by Rob Marshall (Mary Poppins Returns, Into the Woods) and starring Halle Bailey as Ariel and Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, is expected to see $180 million in its opening weekend, Deadline reported.
TANGENT
Reviews of the movie have been mixed, but generally positive, with critics on Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 73% score and critics on Metacritic giving it a score of 59. A review in Variety lauded Bailey and McCarthy’s performances, but lamented Marshall’s “distracting visual effect” for detracting from the remake. The Hollywood Reporter was also wishy-washy about the movie, saying it “nearly drowns in déjà vu.”
CONTRA
Weeks before its opening, fans criticized the live-action remake after catching a glimpse of Ariel’s reanimated sidekick, Flounder, in the first trailer of the movie. Critics argued the animated bottom-dweller is uncomfortably realistic looking, marking a departure from the cartoonish yellow original, and coming dangerously close to a phenomenon known all too well among fans of 2004’s The Polar Express or 2019’s Cats as “uncanny valley”—an unsettling middle ground between ultra-cartoonish animation and real life. The film has also faced a racist response for casting Ariel as a Black woman, as opposed to the red-haired white mermaid in the 1989 original, with some people tweeting #NotMyAriel in response. (Disney’s Freeform network slammed the criticism, emphasizing that Ariel is a fictional character.)
