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Disney’s THE LITTLE MERMAID Makes Huge Splash in Weekend Debut

Poster courtesy of MMPA

Disney’s THE LITTLE MERMAID Makes Huge Splash in Weekend Debut

By Movieguide® Contributor

Despite Disney’s recent backlash—between layoffs and recent immoral content causing several of their children’s movies to bomb—Disney made a huge splash with THE LITTLE MERMAID.

Many were concerned with turning animated films into live actions films but families around the country loved THE LITTLE MERMAID.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, THE LITTLE MERMAID totaled a whopping $117.5 million in box office revenue. That ranks the film as the fifth largest Memorial Day weekend debut in film history.

Paul Dergarabedian, the chief analyst at Comscore told Variety, “It’s a perfect family film. The character of Ariel resonates as strongly today, if not stronger, than it did when the original animated film opened.”

Part of Movieguide®’s review reads:

Ariel, a beautiful mermaid, wants to see what humans are like in LITTLE MERMAID. So, she swims up and sees a shipwreck. In the ship is a handsome prince, Prince Eric. Prince Eric is saving his dog and falls in the ocean. Ariel saves his life, but Eric is only remembers the sound of her singing. Ariel sells her voice to the evil Sea Witch to receive legs so she can go on land to see Eric. Will Ariel fall in love with Eric, granting her voice back or will she be taken by the sea witch?

LITTLE MERMAID has a moral worldview showing an evil witch who is bad. The movie does have scary elements for younger children. Essentially, Ariel sells her soul to the devil character, the sea witch Ursula. She must learn her father had her best interest, and not to be tempted by evil. There are some scary elements to the movie as Ursula can be a bit scary for younger audiences and the scenes of the ship going under is also scary, so caution is advised.