Audiences Loved ‘The Little Mermaid,’ But Numbers Show its Fallen Short in One Way

The Little Mermaid has been wowing audiences since before its official theatrical release. The movie, Disney’s live-action remake of its popular animated feature from 1989, opened during Memorial Day weekend in May this year and was one of Disney’s most highly-anticipated releases of 2023. It was surrounded by controversy for the casting of Black singer and actress Halle Bailey as Princess Ariel in the movie; many used the casting decision as an example of a longstanding complaint that the Walt Disney Company was “pandering to woke” audiences.” And while so many spoke out in support of the movie, it turns out Disney’s The Little Mermaid has fallen short in one way.

Plans for The Little Mermaid live-action remake were confirmed as early as 2016. We found out in December 2017 that Chicago filmmaker Rob Marshall was being courted to direct the film. Between July and November 2019, the rest of the cast, including Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Awkwafina, Javier Bardem (King Triton), Daveed Diggs, and Melissa McCarthy, signed on to the project. The mind behind Hamilton and Moana’s musical genius, Lin-Manuel Miranda, joined composer Alan Menken to work on the soundtrack for the film, and they delivered.

It had all the pieces to be one of Disney’s most successful movies. Yet, when it comes to box office numbers, the movie didn’t deliver as quickly as one might think.

Related: Backlash Against ‘The Little Mermaid’ from Overseas Exposes Hollywood’s Dependency

As reported by ScreenRant, The Little Mermaid has been one of Disney’s slower films to reach the $500 million milestone at the box office. Compared to its predecessors, Disney’s The Little Mermaid has taken a lot longer to achieve this accomplishment.

As the article details,

Beauty and the Beast takes that spot as it hit half a billion on its second weekend, only its 8th day of release. Aside from Cinderella, which took 54 days to reach $500 million, all of Disney’s live-action remakes which have it $500 million have done so in under 24 days, and four movies did it in 10 days or less.

What was The Little Mermaid Lacking?

Addressing what one might immediately go to, Halle Bailey’s performance was immaculate. She was universally praised by critics, with some even calling her performance “hypnotizing.” The movie has been a massive hit with audiences and has done reasonably well with critics too, with a 94% rating on Fandango and a 7.2/10 rating on IMDb. (It does have a lower score of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics but another 94% from audiences.) The critique of the film was primarily centered on the visual effects and the character designs.

This said, the unfair backlash against Halle Bailey affected how the film performed internationally and likely impacted its performance in domestic theatres as well. It’s challenging to know precisely how many people refused to watch the movie in theatres for this reason.

Alongside this, many are simply tired of seeing Disney’s live-action remakes. As film critic Chris McCoy asked, “What, exactly, is the point of trying to redo masterpieces from the golden age of Disney animation with modern CGI tech?”

For a few years now, fans have asked Disney to deliver new, compelling original stories that the next generation of children can fall in love with and celebrate throughout their lives. Still, so far, Disney hasn’t been able to make a new story that audiences can connect with. (Although Disney/Pixar’s Elemental is a promising possibility.)

Whatever the reason, The Little Mermaid, a movie that the actors truly shined in, hasn’t quite hit the mark, and maybe Disney should take the time to learn the appropriate lessons the film is teaching it.