The Little Mermaid (upcoming film)

• Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, a loyal crab and King Triton's trusted servant who watches over Ariel.[6]
• Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, an anxious yet noble tropical fish who is Ariel's best friend.[9]
• Awkwafina as Scuttle, a dim-witted diving bird and a friend of Ariel's, to whom she provides inaccurate descriptions of any object Ariel finds.[3] The character will be portrayed as a female diving bird instead of a male seagull as in the original in order to feature the character in underwater scenes.[10][11]

Additionally, Noma Dumezweni and Emily Coates have been cast in undisclosed roles.[12][13]

On May 25, 2016, Deadline Hollywood reported that Disney is in early development for a live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid.[14] On August 16, 2016, it was announced that Lin-Manuel Miranda, a fan of the original film, will co-produce the film with Marc Platt.[15] Studio veterans Lindsay Lohan and Chris Evans expressed interest in starring in the adaptation.[16][17][18]

On December 6, 2017, it was reported that Rob Marshall was being courted by the Walt Disney Company to direct the film, while Jane Goldman will serve as screenwriter.[19] On December 5, 2018, Marshall revealed that he, along with John DeLuca and Marc Platt were hired to begin developing the project for film adaptation,[20] and said that "John and [Marshall] have begun our work trying to explore it and figure it out", as he felt that "it's a very complicated movie to take from animation to live-action. Live-action's a whole other world so you have to be very careful about how that's done, but so we're starting the exploration phase".[20] Later in December, Marshall was officially hired as director for the film.[21] During an interview on December 21, 2018, Marshall revealed that the film is in very early stages of development, stating that the studio is trying to explore ways to translate the original film's story into live-action.[22] On July 3, 2019, David Magee, who previously wrote the screenplay for Marshall's Mary Poppins Returns, was revealed to have written the script with Goldman.[3] On February 10, 2020, Miranda revealed that rehearsals for the film had already begun.[23]

On June 28, 2019, it was announced that Melissa McCarthy was in talks to play Ursula in the film.[24] The next month, Jacob Tremblay (as the voice of Flounder), Awkwafina (as the voice of Scuttle), Halle Bailey (as Ariel), and Javier Bardem (as King Triton) joined the cast while Harry Styles was considering the role of Prince Eric.[11][1][25][7] However, Styles was later revealed to have turned down the part.[26]

In October, Daveed Diggs, who previously worked on Miranda's musical Hamilton, joined the cast as the voice of Sebastian the crab.[8] In November 2019, it was reported that Jonah Hauer-King had been cast as Eric.[6] Cameron Cuffe was also in the running for the role, before Hauer-King was cast.[27]

On February 18, 2020, McCarthy confirmed her casting as Ursula during an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show: "I play Ursula, the sea witch. It is so fun, we're just in rehearsals. It's been an absolute blast. Stepping into the world of Rob Marshall, it's like a fever dream, I just went to London for a week, I was like, 'I don't get to go to dance camp for a week.' All day he's like, 'Do you want to slide down this 40-foot clam shell?' I'm like, 'Yes! Of course I do. What are you, crazy?' It's been wildly creative."[28]

In July 2020, it was announced that Kacey Musgraves was considered for the part of Vanessa (Ursula's human form), but she turned down the role.[29] In October 2020, actress Emily Coates joined the film in an undisclosed role.[30] In December 2020, Disney officially announced seven principal actors while also debuting the film's official logo.[31]

The casting of Bailey as Ariel came under a polarized response on social media. By July 5, 2019, the hashtag #NotMyAriel was reported to have become the number-one trending on Twitter following the announcement of Bailey's casting.[32] On July 6, 2019, Disney released a statement defending Bailey's casting.[33] On July 15, 2019, a poll revealed that Bailey's casting was met with a mostly positive response.[34] Jodi Benson, Ariel's original voice actress, also defended Bailey's casting, by arguing that "[t]he most important thing is to tell the story" and that "the spirit of a character is what really matters".[35] In an interview on August 12, 2019, Bailey said that "[she doesn't] pay attention to the negativity", while Auliʻi Cravalho, who played Ariel in a musical presentation as a part of The Wonderful World of Disney, expressed excitement at watching Bailey's portrayal of the character.[36] Brandy, the first black woman to play Cinderella onscreen in the racially diverse 1997 television film of the same name, and Anika Noni Rose, who voiced Tiana in The Princess and the Frog, also both praised the casting of Bailey.[37][38]

Principal photography was originally scheduled to begin in April 2020, in London. However, it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[39][40][41] On July 29, 2020, Jacob Tremblay began recording his lines for the film.[42] Filming was scheduled to re-commence on August 10, 2020.[43][44][45] However, it was delayed yet again to November/early-December 2020 in order to accommodate Melissa McCarthy's production schedule for the Hulu miniseries, Nine Perfect Strangers.[30] In December 2020, McCarthy stated that she would hopefully begin filming the movie in January 2021.[46] During an interview at the end of January 2021, Javier Bardem confirmed that filming had officially begun at Pinewood Studios in Iver, England.[47]

By November 2020, Disney's new CEO Bob Chapek announced that filming on all movies that had been postponed by the coronavirus had resumed filming, and in some cases completed principal photography.[48]