Lin-Manuel Miranda Wrote a New Song for Disney's Live-Action THE LITTLE MERMAID About Ariel's Adventures on Land
Lin-Manuel Miranda has taken Disney by storm, writing beautiful songs for the hit animated film Moana, starring in Mary Poppins Returns, making music for Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, and writing every song for the incredibly popular 2021 film Encanto, including the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” which beat out “Let It Go” as the most popular Disney song in a quarter century.
And Miranda is just getting started. The writer worked with legendary Disney composer Alan Menken on the music for Disney’s live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, which is slated to be released next year, and in a recent interview on the Variety Awards Circuit podcast, he talked about the new and old songs we can expect to hear in the movie:
"We wrote three or four tunes, original, replacing none of the ones you like. All of those are in. There is no bigger 'Little Mermaid' fan than me, and the songs that I love that are in this movie are in this movie! They're all in. But we found a couple of opportunities for some other music, and I can't wait to see it. I'm as in the dark as anyone else, honestly...
He went on to tease one of the original songs:
I will tell you that [director] Rob [Marshall] found a really creative way to hear from Ariel even though she is sans voice for a little while, and we wrote some music in her time on land that was really exciting. Because, you know, she gets to experience a lot of firsts as someone with legs for the first time, so we got to lean into all of that musically, which was exciting."
This is exciting! Everyone on board this film is super talented, and I expect a pretty good movie from them. The film stars Halle Bailey as Ariel, the little mermaid, Melissa McCarthy as villainous aunt Ursula, Javier Bardem as Ariel’s father, King Triton, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, Awkwafina as Scuttle, and Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric. Rob Marshall is directing the film from a script written by David Magee.
The Little Mermaid is set to be released on May 26, 2023.