Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda will work with Alan Menken on a Live-Action version of THE LITTLE MERMAID!
Disney will be pairing Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda with songwriter Alan Menken to write music for a live-action adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. The film, which Disney has been thinking about adapting to live-action for a while now, will include a mix of music from the 1989 animated Disney film, for which Menken won two of his eight Oscars, as well as some new songs.
Miranda will also produce the movie along with Marc Platt. Miranda, whose smash-hit musical, Hamilton, won 11 Tonys, is a fan of The Little Mermaid, and even named his son Sebastian after the character from the film. It is unclear at this point as to how involved Miranda will be in this new film, though as of now he is not writing the script, but he will be overseeing the story.
This is not the beginning of Miranda’s relationship with Disney, as he will be starring alongside Emily Blunt in a live-action sequel to Mary Poppins. As well, Miranda worked on the music for the upcoming Disney film, Moana, which hits theatres this November.
Disney has recently upped its plans for live-action adaptations of Disney classics after the success of The Jungle Book. Their line-up includes a live-action Beauty and the Beast, which will star Emma Watson, Cruella, which will have Emma Stone in the title role, and Jungle Cruise with Dwayne Johnson.
However, Disney is not alone in creating a live-action version of The Little Mermaid, as Working Title already has a similar project in the works with Universal, which is set to star Chloe Grace Moretz.
As a huge fan of Hamilton and Lin-Manuel Miranda as well as The Little Mermaid, I cannot wait to see what will come out of this partnership. I can only hope we won’t have to wait too long to head back ‘under the sea.’
(source)