Following success with Maleficent, Cinderella and particularly this year's new adaptation of The Jungle Book, Disney is naturally considering every fairy tale in its cartoon canon to be possible fodder for live-action re-imagining. The latest possibility the Mouse House is eyeing? The Little Mermaid.
Deadline's report cautions that there is no official development up and running just yet, but that bosses at the company recently heard a new idea for how the film could work and are now deciding whether to go ahead with it. There have been discussions with big producers about the concept, including "some with a strong connection to the studio", likely pointing to Joe Roth, who worked on Maleficent, Alice In Wonderland and Oz The Great And Powerful.
Yet if Disney does decide to bring Ariel the mermaid into the live-action realm, the team will have to contend with competition that is already pushing ahead, especially Working Title and Universal's take, which has Chloe Grace Moretz attached to star and Rebecca Thomas on board to direct from a Richard Curtis script.
Still, the corporate powerhouse has seen off challengers before, so it may still decide that it's worth pursuing. The next of the animation-to-live action conversion jobs, Beauty And The Beast, arrives next March and recently debuted its first teaser.