Naturally, Hollywood Is Adapting The Little Mermaid Into a Sinister, Sensual Love Triangle
If you always thought that The Little Mermaid's sixteen-year-old Ariel would benefit from a dark Hollywood reimagining in which she is forced to realize that life isn't all underwater sing-alongs, it's your lucky day. Sony was thinking the same thing and -- in the same vein as Hollywood's dramatic Snow White reboots -- has announced a grim new twist on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale.
Sony has acquired Carolyn Turgeon's novel Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale and tapped Country Strong's Shana Feste to adapt the book for the screen and direct. According to The Hollywood Reporter:
The story gets its point of view shifted and the tone is definitely not Disney. It centers on a princess who, in order to save her ravaged kingdom, sets out on a dangerous journey to marry the prince of her rival kingdom, not knowing that a beautiful mermaid has fallen for the same man and has sacrificed everything to be with him.
But wait! How dark will Sony's The Little Mermaid get? After browsing through Amazon.com's user reviews of Turgeon's novel, Movieline noticed that multiple users reference graphic sex scenes (Serena Witzke says, "Both princesses engage in some sensuality.") and a tongue amputation. As in, someone opens up Ariel's mouth and slits out her tongue. Practically speaking, that is probably the easiest way to rob someone of their beautiful voice but it is a far cry from Disney's 1989 clever plot device -- when Ursula just magically removed Ariel's voice and stored it in a nautilus shell. As you do.
Let us all be warned: depending on how faithful Feste is to her source novel, Sony's Little Mermaid could get gruesome. Until then...
· Sony Picks Up Dark Retelling of 'Little Mermaid' [THR]
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All these "edgy" undertakings of fairy tales are sort of comparable to my opinion of Taylor Momsen's music career: Yes it's cool that you're discovering there are dark things in the world in comparison to the bright and shiny upbringing we're all familiar with, and kudos to you for finding it. But really, there's literally nothing left to shock us, so how about trying to do some work of quality instead of rehashing everything we've seen done before in the name of "dark and edgy" many years prior to what you're attempting now?
Actually, The Little Mermaid isn't even the real tale. It's not that writers are coming up with some random dark story, it's a tale that has been around much longer than Disney's version. Just because you grew up with the Disney film, doesn't mean people shouldn't make a film adaptation of the original story.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't The Little Mermaid originally based on a story that's pretty dark and twisted to begin with? I seem to remember something about Ariel's tail getting split into "legs" and then dancing on the beach for the prince's amusement through silent, painful tears.
Ah, I was close: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_little_mermaid
The problem is that most people on the USA believes that Disney's adaptations of european legends and novelsare faithfull, or even worse, are originally written by Disney. The real story of Andersen´s little mermaid ends with her suicide. Some versions of the most beloved fairytales include amputations, canibalism, childen abandom, grusome murders and so on. It's been Disney who softended the real tone with tones of sugar. And remember, Disney has not the rigths of european folclore and literature, so stop relating this studio with these stories. Would you forget Shakespeare if Disney makes an adaptation of one of his plays?