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Credit: DisneyThe 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid (1989) did so poorly with fans and critics that reports are still emerging of exactly how much money it lost Disney.
The original Little Mermaid, written and directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, holds a special place in the hearts of many Disney fans.
While the movie was not the massive blockbuster that the Mouse House has come to expect all its releases to be, it broke a long streak of box office underperformance and is widely regarded as the kickoff of the “Disney Renaissance” that would come to include Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Hercules (1997).
Related: New: Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ Casts All-New Caucasian Ariel Following Racial Backlash
It was no real surprise that Disney would attempt to remake The Little Mermaid eventually, considering that it is apparently only planning on producing prequels, sequels, spinoffs, and remakes for the next decade or so.
The film starred Halle Bailey, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay, Noma Dumezweni, Art Malik, Javier Bardem, and Melissa McCarthy and was directed by Rob Marshall; Disney Legend Alan Menken returned to write new music for the movie alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the company spared no expense in the publicity tours.
That might have been part of the problem, or at least a small fraction. Simply put, The Little Mermaid did not pull in the box office grosses necessary to turn one of the most expensive movies ever made into a success.
According to a new report in Forbes, the movie has lost Disney almost $5 million so far; while that’s a mere fraction of its estimated $240 million production budget, it is definitely not what the Disney C-suite wants to hear.
Forbes says:
Disney’s live action version of The Little Mermaid lost an estimated $4.9 million at the box office last year according to analysis of recently-released filings which reveal that the movie’s “cost exceeded the production budget” as spending surged to $355.1 million (£270.6 million).
The latest filings cover the year to August 31, 2023 which is three months after the movie was released and long after filming wrapped in July 2021. The year before release is when intensive work on visual effects is usually done and the financial statements show that $35.4 million (£27 million) was spent on the movie during the period.
Related: Disney Shoves Aside Halle Bailey’s Ariel, Another New Version of ‘The Little Mermaid’ Announced
The Little Mermaid is by no means unusual in modern films for having a grotesquely huge production budget (which typically does not factor in the money spent on publicizing a movie). In fact, Disney fans are beginning to grow weary of the company equating huge expenditures with success, like paying Robert Downey Jr. nearly $100 million for two movies.
After a box office bomb like the 2023 movie, it feels unlikely that Disney is going to greenlight any new projects under the sea any time soon. Sadly, a beloved franchise might actually be dead.
Did you see The Little Mermaid in theaters?