It appears that new songs have been confirmed for Disney’s upcoming remake of The Little Mermaid by lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda.
In a conversation with The Warp, Miranda was asked how many new songs he planned on putting in the movie, and he explained:
I don’t know. Well, I know how many we wrote. I don’t know if they’ll all make it in, but it’s probably three or four songs.
While he couldn’t go into further details, Miranda did confirm that all of the movie’s original songs, like “Part of Your World” and “Under the Sea,” will still be included.
“I’m at pains to tell you,” he said, “replacing none of the songs you love. The songs you love are in the movie because they’re the songs I love. Everything you love in the original is there.”
But unlike the late great Howard Ashman, who was as much vocal director as he was lyricist, Lin-Manuel Miranda has been very hands-off when it comes to the actual song recordings.
“I didn’t get to go. It was COVID,” he said. “No one’s visiting a set. My one chance to visit the set got scuttled, sorry, by COVID. And the only time I was on set was when they were recording some of the vocals. January 2020, I got to hear Awkwafina sing a bit, and I got to hear Daveed sing a bit. And that was really it.”
Miranda elaborated further on his distanced work, putting trust in Director Rob Marshall, Composer Alan Menken, and the cast themselves.
“I Skyped in on some of the other vocals, but listen, you don’t need me around to have Halle sing ‘Part of Your World,'” he argued. “You know she’s going to tear the skin off the ball when she sings it. I’m really excited to see what Rob’s done. The only news I can break is that Alan Menken FaceTimed me excitedly, that he saw a rough cut, and he loved it. And now he’s scoring it in addition to the songs. He’s hard at work.”
Disney’s The Little Mermaid is scheduled to sail into theaters in 2023.
