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ABC Is Going Under The Sea With A Live 'Little Mermaid' Musical — But Could It Drown Out The Upcoming Disney Version?

ABC is taking it a step further and dipping into the pool of Disney magic by taking on the 1989 animated classic, 'Little Mermaid.'

By Rachel CarringtonPublished 6 years ago 2 min read
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Musicals seem to be all the rage on television and in movie theaters. Beauty and the Beast hit box office gold back in March, and ABC is hoping to hit pay dirt with its Dirty Dancing remake this month. Now they're taking it a step further and dipping into the pool of #Disney magic by taking on the 1989 animated classic, #LittleMermaid.

The Wonderful World of Disney: The Little Mermaid Live will air on Tuesday, October 3rd as ABC's first live musical event. Produced by Hamish Hamilton, Ian Stewart, David Jammy, Katy Mullan and Richard Kraft, the two-hour production will include a variety of to-be-named celebrity talent. It will certainly be interesting to see who is chosen for Sebastian's lively tunes.

The network is calling this a "hybrid television experience" that will feature the original score from the animated film with songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. The jury is out on exactly what the "hybrid" means. Will we see scenes from the animated film while the singing is done by on-stage singers? It actually sounds a bit confusing, but if ABC doesn't get this right, there are other live-action versions of this classic.

Disney has already planned a live action movie, but no cast has been confirmed. Lin-Manuel Miranda is supervising the writing of that script, but there has been no information on who exactly is penning the script or directing the movie. So it could be quite a while before the movie hits the big screens.

There's also an indie film loosely based on The Little Mermaid. That trailer dropped last month, and the movie is expected some time this year.

And finally, Universal announced a live-action version of the movie in 2014, but the film is struggling, having lost Sofia Coppola as well as three writers. Currently, Love Actually's Richard Curtis is the writer attached to the project and Chloe Grace Moretz is Ariel, but there's no word on whether or not this movie will actually come to fruition.

Of course, only the ABC and Disney versions will have the rights to the songs that everyone loves. But with so many adaptations being made, will audiences have Mermaid fatigue by the time Lin-Manuel Miranda's version hits theaters?

Either way, with musicals gearing up to take over television and movie screens, it's clear that, once again, we'll have to contend with those Disney tunes we can't get out of our head.

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About the Creator

Rachel Carrington

I'm an avid writer and reader. I've had over 53 novels published and over 2,000 articles. Here I review movies, TV series/episodes, books, and write about entertainment. www.rachelcarrington.com

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