The live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid utilized CGI and special effects to create the underwater world and was filmed in Sardinia, Italy, to give it a Caribbean feel. The villages of Santa Teresa di Gallura and Castelsardo in Sardinia were used to film various scenes.
Set on the northern coast of Sardinia, the majority of The Little Mermaid was filmed in and around Santa Teresa Gallura. Here you'll find crystal clear waters, pristine white sands, and bright corals underwater.
Although half of the movie takes place under the sea, the 2023 live-action adaptation of Disney's 1989 beloved animated film features gorgeous locations. The terrestrial part of The Little Mermaid was filmed in Sardinia, Italy, one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean.
Filming underwater was deemed too challenging and impractical, so the production used blue screens and nautical footage as inspiration to create the ocean scenery. Despite using CGI, the filmmakers faced challenges in ensuring that it all looked realistic, all while keeping true to the beloved original film.
“The Disney artists moved the story from the frigid Baltic of Andersen's native Denmark to a warmer, sunnier that suggested the Mediterranean, probably off the coast of southern Italy. Elements in the costumes and building suggest an equally vague time in the late seventeenth or eighteenth century.
The Little Mermaid 2023 Making of & Behind the Scenes
Is The Little Mermaid 2023 set in the Caribbean?
The Little Mermaid is set in the Caribbean
This choice was made by director Rob Marshall because of Sebastian's Creole accent, but also to allow the cast to be more diverse. As Allo Ciné explains, the Caribbean islands were colonised by Europeans during the Napoleonic Wars.
Ariel's story really begins in Ancient Greece. According to lore, she is a nereid, one of the dozens of daughters of the sea-god Triton. This isn't the first time that the internet has been set alight over the suggestion that famous figures of antiquity could be anything but white.
How much did Halle Bailey get paid for The Little Mermaid?
It's believed that Bailey made about $1.5 million for her role as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, but that number could increase depending on how well the film performs opening weekend and beyond.
So far, Halle Bailey has received glowing reviews for her portrayal of Ariel with audiences impressed by her amazing voice singing the classic “A Part of Your World.” “This song has meant so much to so many of us for so long,” Bailey explained to KTLA 5's Sam Rubin on Monday.
There, before Ursula is fully evil, she actually chooses to have octopus tentacles instead of the usual fishtails that mermaids have, and Triton betrays her because of her choice, banishing her from the kingdom.
While Ariel is 16 years old in Disney animated The Little Mermaid film, her love interest is not the same age. The character's voice actor, Christopher Daniel Barnes, was just 16 years old at the time of recording the film, leading to the assumption that the character was intended to be the same age.
How long did it take to film The Little Mermaid 2023?
The movie comes to theatres on Friday, May 26, but the release has been years in the making. "Oh, gosh, it felt like we had four babies. It took four years, four and a half years. It was such a sense of relief, accomplishment, joy, pride," said Rob Marshall, the director and producer of "The Little Mermaid."
Ursula was played by Melissa McCarthy in the 2023 live action remake of The Little Mermaid, directed by Rob Marshall. In this version, like with the Broadway musical, Ursula is the estranged younger sister of King Triton (played by Javier Bardem), thus making her the paternal aunt to Ariel and her sisters in this film.
While it is known that her mother perished, there is no story attached to the event. However, much later, in 2008, an animated The Little Mermaid prequel revealed that Ariel's mother was crushed by a pirate ship during an altercation between humans and merpeople.
Director Rob Marshall reveals what it was like seeing Halle Bailey's initial audition for Ariel. “The first actor we saw for this role was Halle. The first thing she did is she came in and sang for us.
“I think out of everything, that's the thing that gets under my skin the most when people are comparing us because we are best friends, we're sisters," she said. "Sometimes we forget that we're not twins and it's like, don't mess with my blood. Don't mess with her."
“I had done a photoshoot for Disney a few years back where Annie Leibowitz shot me as Ursula,” Queen Latifah told “GMA” in an exclusive interview. “So when this popped up, it was like, OK, a TV production. Alright … Once they explained to me the way that they wanted to do it, I thought it was interesting.”
How much did Melissa McCarthy get paid for The Little Mermaid?
Melissa McCarthy, who played the devious Ursula in the live-action, made $500,000 for her work in the film. Other cast members received more modest salaries for their supporting roles.
"When I chose Halle for the role, it was literally because she was the best person for the role," Marshall says. "It's about who claims a role, who brings a role to life in a way you could never have imagined."
Berry appeared in the nu metal band Limp Bizkit's music video for "Behind Blue Eyes" for the motion picture soundtrack for the film. The same year, she was named No. 1 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World poll. Berry starred as the title role in the film Catwoman, for which she received US$12.5 million.
Yes, in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, he describes the mermaid as having a “white skin.” Andersen was a Dane, he lived in a place where anyone who wasn't pasty-white (or the sun-damaged variation of pasty-white) was a rarity.
In the 1989 movie, Ariel was born in the fictional underwater kingdom of Atlantica, which technically makes her Atlantican, not Danish. As Ariel is half fish, she cannot be categorized by our ethnicities and races.
