If Peter Pan and Wendy is any indication of the quality we’re about to be subjected to with The Little Mermaid live action remake… maybe we’d rather she just stay in the ocean.
Valiant Renegade is reporting that the buzz around Disney’s live action remake of The Little Mermaid is a disaster like the lost city of Atlantis (my words, not his)… and he’s got numbers to make his point.
(189) The Little Mermaid Box Office DISASTER?! | Disney Should PANIC NOW – YouTube
For my own part I’ve maintained that the live action remakes of classic Disney properties have been artistic failures even while I recognized the reliability of their box office draw. I’ve even graciously offered an alternative remake strategy that could keep the formula, receipts, and cinema scores fresh, but here we are. You would think, and certainly the Mouskaxecutives thought, another outing with Ariel would net them a huge haul.
Maybe it’s the uncanny valley of ugly fish in the trailers. Maybe it’s the bitter after taste of course upon depressing course of moral complexity for childless adults injected into children’s properties. Maybe it’s the runtime 150% longer than the original. Whatever the cause, BoxOfficePro is reporting that the initial tracking indicates an opening weekend of $70mil-$90mil and total theatrical run receipts of $235mil-305mil. That’s pretty good for a movie with a budget of $100mil, of course Disney doesn’t spend chump change like that when they can barrage your senses with CGI in every sector of the screen. The original Disney animated feature cost less than $50mil to produce and brought in over $200mil. I think we can all agree there has been a little inflation since then.
There’s a fun inverse to consider here. The original Disney Little Mermaid was released in 1989.
Four years later live action Super Mario Bros. plunged into theaters to wide derision and has circled the bowl of infamy ever since. This year the animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been embraced by the family audience to the tune of a billion dollars this past weekend if Deadline is correct in their numbers. Of course, WDW Pro fans will find this to be old news.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie clocks in at a lean hour and a half and even my four-year-old daughter was engaged the whole time. With a run time over two hours how many moms are going to get a chance to share the joy and wonder with their little girls the way they shared with their own mothers in childhood? If the trailer is any indication maybe the movie will be dark enough that the little tykes can grab an afternoon nap.
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