The Little Mermaid (1989 film)

The first film was adapted into a stage musical with a book by Doug Wright[8] and additional songs by Alan Menken and new lyricist Glenn Slater opened in Denver in July 2007 and began performances on Broadway January 10, 2008[9][10] starring Sierra Boggess.One night, Ariel, Flounder, and Sebastian, a crab who serves as Triton's adviser and court composer, travel to the surface to watch a birthday celebration for Prince Eric.[18] In 1985, Ron Clements became interested in a film adaptation of "The Little Mermaid" while he was serving as a director on The Great Mouse Detective (1986) alongside John Musker.While in production in the 1980s, the staff found, by chance, original story and visual development work done by Kay Nielsen for Disney's proposed 1930s Andersen feature.Sherri Lynn Stoner, a former member of Los Angeles' Groundlings improvisation comedy group, and Joshua Finkel, a Broadway actor, performed key scenes as Ariel and Eric respectively.[24] The Little Mermaid's supervising animators included Glen Keane and Mark Henn on Ariel, Duncan Marjoribanks on Sebastian, Andreas Deja on King Triton, and Ruben Aquino on Ursula.[17] Originally, Keane had been asked to work on Ursula, as he had established a reputation for drawing large, powerful figures, such as the bear in The Fox and the Hound (1981) and Professor Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective (1986).and the effect of her hair underwater was based on both footage of Sally Ride when she was in space,[17] and scenes of Stoner in a pool for guidance in animating Ariel's swimming.[17] An attempt to use Disney's famed multiplane camera for the first time in years for quality "depth" shots failed because the machine was reputedly in dilapidated condition.[32] Pat Carroll was not Clements and Musker's first choice to voice Ursula; the original script had been written with Bea Arthur of the Disney-owned TV series The Golden Girls in mind.[44][45] The home video release, along with box office and merchandise sales, contributed to The Little Mermaid generating a total revenue of $1 billion.[50] The film was re-released on DVD on October 3, 2006, as part of the Walt Disney Platinum Editions of features, alongside the music video for the cover version of "Kiss The Girl" performed by Ashley Tisdale.[57] In June 2016, Disney held special presentations of the film at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, titled The Little Mermaid in Concert.During the third and final performance, Jodi Benson replaced Bareilles to reprise her original role as Ariel, while Brad Kane (the singing voice of the title character of Aladdin) and Susan Egan (who played Belle in the stage adaptation of Beauty and the Beast) also made special appearances, singing songs from their respective films, and a duet of "A Whole New World".These performances once again combined a screening of the film with live renditions of the film's songs, this time starring Lea Michele as Ariel, Harvey Fierstein as Ursula, Cheech Marin as Chef Louis, Ken Page as Sebastian, Peter Gallagher as King Triton, Leo Gallo as Prince Eric, Joshua Turchin as Flounder, and an uncredited actor as Scuttle.The site's consensus reads "The Little Mermaid ushered in a new golden era for Disney animation with warm and charming hand-drawn characters and catchy musical sequences.[71] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was enthusiastic about the film, writing, "The Little Mermaid is a jolly and inventive animated fantasy—a movie that's so creative and so much fun it deserves comparison with the best Disney work of the past.""[72] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune wrote, "While the story won't win any prizes from the women's liberation movement, the animation is so full and colorful and the songs so beguiling that this is a case of where someone made one like they used to.They also praised the musical collaboration between Howard Ashman and Alan Menken "whose songs frequently begin slowly but build in cleverness and intensity."[75] During the film's 1997 re-release, Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote a mixed review, referring to it as a "likably unspectacular adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen classic.While still giving a positive review, they stated that the film "can't compare to the real Disney classics (which appealed equally to both kids and adults).[78] Empire gave a positive review of the film, stating that "[The Little Mermaid is] a charmer of a movie, boasting all the ingredients that make a Disney experience something to treasure yet free of all the politically correct, formulaic elements that have bogged down the more recent productions.[21] Walt Disney Feature Animation was further expanded as a result of The Little Mermaid and increasingly successful follow-ups – Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994).The staff increased from 300 members in 1988 to 2,200 in 1999 spread across three studios in Burbank, California, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.[20] 1988's Oliver & Company had served as a test of sorts to the success of the musical format before Disney committed to the Broadway-style structure of The Little Mermaid.Dr. Michael Landis, a history teacher at State University of New York, Ulster, writing for Smithsonian Magazine in 2019, says the film "sent important messages about identity to its young audiences," including topics of gay rights (the central character, Ariel, "feels constrained by her patriarchal society" and is "in the closet"), gender fluidity, and body image issues.To ensure Ariel's transition to domesticity, the men of her life murder Ursula with a "conveniently phallic" symbol, according to Patrick D. Murphy: or, as Sells puts it, "the ritual slaughtering of the archetypal evil feminine character."But even though the mom dies in Ariel's Beginning (it's still Disney, after all), it doesn't send the message to my daughter that girls should sacrifice parts of themselves to be with someone, much less someone you just met, where the only connection you share is that you both think the other is attractive.[105] The Wonderful World of Disney: The Little Mermaid Live was set to air on October 3, 2017, and would have featured a broadcast of the film with a similar format to the Hollywood Bowl concerts.[116][115] Halle Bailey stars as Ariel along with Jonah Hauer-King, Javier Bardem and Melissa McCarthy, with Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay and Awkwafina in voice roles.