Following the announcement that singer Halle Bailey has been cast as Ariel in Disney’s live-action version of The Little Mermaid, attention is now turning to who’ll play Prince Eric – the dashing landlubber who is attractive enough to get a genuine mermaid to change her very physical being and give up her literal voice for love. Who could possibly be that swoonsome? Step in One Direction singer Harry Styles, who has fans the world over screaming at the very sight of him. Sounds about right.
According to Collider, Styles is in early talks to take the male lead, following his screen debut in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. This comes just after he missed out on the role of Elvis in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, where he was said to be in the final five for the part, which eventually went to up-and-comer Austin Butler. Like The Lion King and Aladdin, this new take on the Disney classic will once again be a full-blown musical, with Alan Menken rerunning to his original songbook with updates from Lin-Manuel Miranda. If Dunkirk proved that Styles could act, we already knew he could sing.
If Styles does sign on, he’ll be joining a cast that currently seems set to include Melissa McCarthy as cephalopodic villain Ursula, and Jacob Tremblay and Awkwafina as Ariel’s friends Flounder and Scuttle. Directing The Little Mermaid will be Mary Poppins Returns filmmaker Rob Marshall, with shooting expected to begin in the early part of 2020. The film doesn’t yet have a release date.
In the meantime, Disney’s latest remake is the photo-real new version of The Lion King, which hits cinemas on Friday – and beyond that, the first trailer for the reimagined song-free Mulan debuted online just over a week ago.