‘The Little Mermaid’ trailer earns most views for a Disney live-action since ‘The Lion King’

The official trailer for the upcoming live-action of ‘The Little Mermaid’ premiered during this year’s Academy Awards ceremony where it was introduced by stars Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy.

The trailer generated over 108 million views during its first 24 hours, making it one of the most watched Disney live-action trailers alongside ‘The Lion King’, which raked in approximately 130 million in spring 2019 for its first trailer.

What to expect from ‘The Little Mermaid’

The remake is expected to depict the same plot as the original film from 1989, which follows the adventurous mermaid, Ariel (Bailey), who is fascinated by humans. After falling in love with a human Prince (Jonah Haur-King), Ariel makes a harrowing deal with the sea witch, Ursula (McCarthy).

The film stars Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, Jonah Haur-King, Simone Ashley, Jacob Tremblay, Daveed Diggs, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Alan Menken, composer, and songwriter for the animated film, returns to compose the score and songs of this new film. Lin-Manuel Miranda worked alongside Menken to co-write new songs.

Miranda told Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast: “We wrote three or four original tunes, replacing none of the ones you like. All of those are in.”

“There’s no bigger ‘Little Mermaid’ fan than me,” he added. “But we found a couple opportunities for some other music that I can’t wait to see. I’m in the dark as anyone else, honestly.”

Miranda is indeed a huge fan of the original ‘Little Mermaid’ as he notoriously named one of his sons after the character Sebastian.

Disney live-actions

Disney has been pumping out live-action adaptations of their movies for years now with ‘Peter Pan & Wendy’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’ slated to release later this year and there are many more on the way.

The general reception to these remakes have been mixed. While they almost always pull in a staggering amount at the box office, many have deemed these adaptations to be unnecessary.

Only a few titles like ‘Cinderella’ (2015) have managed to appease both fans and critics alike.

Other upcoming Disney live-actions include ‘Snow White’, ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’, ‘Hercules’, ‘Hunchback’, ‘Tink’, ‘Robin Hood’, ‘Lilo & Stitch’ and many more.