Disney is also making a live-action version of The Little Mermaid, but this one comes from Conglomerate Media and Kingsway Productions and is, somehow, even less like the Hans Christian Andersen tale than the Disney one.
This trailer premiered on Deadline, and I don’t even know what’s happening here. There are British people in Mississippi and a mermaid in a tank and a creepy child whom I think I’m supposed to find darling but makes me want to die a little. And there appears to be a Princess Bride-style framing device where Shirley MacLaine (who is either the little girl grown-up or the mermaid) tells this bad story years later.
I guess the girl and the blandest-faced Brit I have ever seen go to Mississippi to find out if there is a real “little mermaid,” and there is, and adventure follows.
I have honestly never wanted to see anything less and been more sure someone is going to make me watch it while laughing at my reactions. There’s no date for this yet, but we’re supposed to expect it some time later this year.