‘The Little Mermaid’ Saved Disney Once, Can It Do It Again?

By all possible measurements, Disney Animation Studios is in a bit of trouble right now. It’s been quite some time since they’ve had a hit, and Disney is relying on sequels and live-action films to help revive its flailing numbers. In 2022, Disney had two of the largest box office flops in Lightyear (2022) and Strange World (2022). To help get the studio back on track, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that Disney would release sequels to Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia.

This isn’t the first time that Disney Animation has been struggling. In the late 70s and early 80s, Disney struggled to find a new generation to be its audience. After the success of the early Walt Disney years, the company struggled to find its footing without Walt. This generation brought us The Rescuers (1977), The Black Cauldron (1985), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), and Oliver and Company (1988). Not really on anyone’s top 10 list of greatest Disney movies of all time.

And then came The Little Mermaid (1989). The movie revitalized the entire studio and brought back a whole genre of movies: Princess films. It’s hard to fully understand just how important this movie was to Disney and how it changed the course of the studio.

The original idea for the movie came from Ron Clements. After thumbing through a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale book, he landed on it. He cleaned it up quite a bit (if you’ve never read the original, don’t. It will ruin it for you).

In 1985, he pitched the idea to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and Disney CEO Michael Eisner, and they passed on the idea. The duo believed no one would see a Princess movie, especially parents. But Clements kept after it.

He recruited Howard  Ashman, who had an off-Broadway hit on his hands with Little Shop of Horrors, to write “Part of Your World” for a second pitch meeting. On the second try, and after hearing Ashman sing the song, Katzenberg and Eisner agreed to give it a go.

And The Little Mermaid was a massive hit for Disney. It made $200 million at the box office, nearly four times what Disney’s previous animated release, Oliver and Company, made. A few months after its theatrical release, it was released on VHS and sold 10 million copies.

Rebecca Hains, author of “The Princess Problem: Guiding Our Girls Through The Princess-Obsessed Years,” told the Washington Post:

It was so different than anything else that Disney had released in decades. It changed the company’s trajectory for the better and pulled it out of the dark years where they were recycling material. 

The Little Mermaid helped to spawn the next generation of Princess movies, including Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995), and Mulan (1998). 

And now Disney is again pinning its hopes on a singing mermaid and her friends. With all its troubles with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and its streaming and media issues, Disney needs a big hit on Memorial Day weekend. Box office projects are expecting at least $100 million in revenue.

Perhaps this version will spark a new revolution in Disney films. Halle Bailey’s Ariel and Jonah Hauer-King’s Prince Eric might just be the spark for a new Disney renaissance. We’ll have to wait and see.