Disney’s live-action adaptations of their classic animated features continue to be wildly successful, with Aladdin recently crossing the $900m mark at the box office and The Lion King set to easily eclipse that number. One of these projects that has been rapidly picking up steam is The Little Mermaid, even though it doesn’t have an official release date yet.
Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda were confirmed to be working on the music over three and a half years ago but it wasn’t until last December that Rob Marshall, who’s becoming one of Disney’s go-to directors following Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns, was officially confirmed to helm.
Even though The Little Mermaid doesn’t start shooting until 2020, there have been a flurry of casting announcements in the last few weeks that have brought a surprising amount of backlash. Melissa McCarthy entering talks to play Ursula certainly got people talking, while Jacob Tremblay and Awkwafina are set to co-star as Flounder and Scuttle, respectively. Then, Halle Bailey was cast in the title role just last week, and obviously the internet had things to say about that, too.
With the majority of the lead roles starting to get filled, speculation will turn to who will play Ariel’s father, King Triton. Some have suggested Idris Elba as a potential candidate, but another name has thrown their hat into the ring, and there’s fan art to prove it.
Actor, comedian, activist and all-round good guy Terry Crews recently tweeted a picture of himself as a mermaid. This being the internet, it wasn’t long before someone turned Crews’ crude mock-up into genuine fan art. Yes, as you can see below, Boss Logic has now shown us how the actor would really look as the King of Atlantica and to be honest, it’s pretty fantastic.
Casting Terry Crews as the king of an underwater kingdom who frequently interacts with anthropomorphic sea creatures sounds like genius casting, and could add an entirely new dimension to the movie. Whether it’ll happen or not remains to be seen, but we’d be all for it.
There may not be a release date set in stone just yet, but Disney have already announced that they have live-action movies debuting in October 2021 and May 2022, so it seems likely that one of these will be The Little Mermaid. That gives them plenty of time to finish putting the cast together, but if Crews did manage to bag the role, the actor’s fans would love it more than Terry loves yogurt.
