The Disney company has been around for a long time. Since the 1920s, when Walt Disney made his first cartoon, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, they have been making animated movies and TV shows. From there, the company kept growing and making new figures, like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Donald, and Pluto.
In the 1950s, with the movie Treasure Island, the company moved into the live-action business. During what is known as Disney’s Renaissance, from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the Walt Disney Company made a lot of famous animated movies again.
Alyssa Milano Was the Model for the First Ariel at Disney!
Disney’s first cartoon version of The Little Mermaid came out in 1989. This was during Disney’s Renaissance era, which also included movies like The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, and Tarzan.
But even die-hard Disney fans and adults might not know that the design of Ariel was based on early shots and movies of Charmed actress and activist Alyssa Milano. She didn’t find out about this until years later.
Milano says that she was asked to host The Making of The Little Mermaid, and that’s when she found out that “the Little Mermaid’s drawing and likeness were based on pictures of me when I was younger.”
Glen Keane, who worked on the cartoon version of the movie, drew Ariel based on photos of Alyssa Milano from her time on Who’s the Boss. Ariel may have looked like Milano, but it was voice actress and singer Jodi Benson who made the character come to life.
Jodi Benson not only did Ariel’s voice in the first movie, but she also did it in the second movie, the prequel, and the TV show that came after it and played on The Disney Channel.
Why Disney’s Live-action Movies Haven’t Been Doing Well at the Box Office!
Disney has been putting out live-action remakes of their old movies like The Lion King, Mulan, and even Dumbo. This is likely a way to make more money and get more people to see their movies.
But Colin Farrell, Donald Glover, and Beyoncé as actors haven’t been able to save these movies from the harsh and passionate views of the internet. Alice in Wonderland was the first live-action movie to come out in 2010, and it did pretty well at the box office.
The Lion King also did well at the box office, but fans of the movie said it didn’t have the same special quality as the animated version. This is probably because the real animals in the live-action version didn’t have facial movements to show more feeling.
When they came out, movies like Mulan, Dumbo, and Cruella were all considered huge failures. This may have been because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected all movie releases at the time. Still, many of the good reviews for this movie talk more about how nostalgic it is than about how good it is.
But because most of the movies do well at the box office, Disney doesn’t seem likely to make any live-action remakes. However, new versions of old hits like Bambi and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs are rumored to be in the works.
People Haven’t Liked How Little Mermaid Has Been Cast!
When the first trailer for the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid came out, the internet was full of videos of children and adults of different backgrounds getting excited and emotional about Halle Bailey being cast as such an iconic character.
This shows how important representation is for people of all ages. People still didn’t like the movie, the people who made it, or Halle Bailey for being cast as Ariel, even though Bailey’s hiring made a lot of people happy.
The clip for The Little Mermaid (2023) got up to 1.5 million dislikes on YouTube, making it one of the most hated videos on the site.
Even though there was no dislike counter, people still wrote nasty things. Even the movie’s director, Rob Marshall, was surprised by how people felt about Halle playing Ariel. To read more Entertainment related articles, stay tuned to our website Crossover99.com.