Little Mermaid Could Be Much Darker With Elle Fanning as Ariel
The adaptation was supposed to show the violent side of Andersen's story of The Little Mermaid.
Despite the fact that Hans Christian Andersen's stories are interesting and easy to read for children, the ideas that Andersen put into them appeal more to an adult audience.
The Little Mermaid is no exception.
At first glance, the main theme of the story seems to be love. However, Andersen adds the themes of self-sacrifice, deception, and stupidity to the story.
The author did not avoid religious aspect too, including the appropriate context in the end. But perhaps the main thing that distinguishes The Little Mermaid from many other fairy tales is cruelty.
While Disney 's 1989 animation was aimed exclusively at a children's audience, excluding all the violent parts of the story, and the new adaptation seems to be following exactly the same path, Elle Fanning admitted that she was cast as Ariel in Joe Wright's darker project.
According to her, this adaptation was meant to reveal the grim side of The Little Mermaid:
"Joe Wright and I were supposed to do the Little Mermaid. It was with Working Title and it was going to be the She Turns Into Foam version. Very dark. Very musical. Very theatrical like he does."
Most likely, such an interesting project was not was not brought to life because of the risk that the movie would not be liked by the many fans of the original cartoon.
As a general rule, when there is a highly successful first project, the viewers are extremely reluctant to accept a new version, even if it would be much closer to what Andersen wrote.
Although there were dark moments in The Little Mermaid in 1989, they were quickly forgotten due to the colorfulness of the animation and the large presence of musical scenes.
The actress also revealed that the budget for the movie would likely be astronomical because it would have to be shot underwater.
Apparently, the studios didn't want to risk a big budget on a movie that was unlikely to become a box office hit.
With Disney's new adaptation of The Little Mermaid coming out on May 26, it's unlikely that Joe Wright's project will ever come to fruition, although the idea of showing a more realistic version of a mermaid's unrequited love for a human sounds extremely fascinating.
Source: Happy Sad Confused