The director of the adventure blockbuster “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Stranger Tides” updated a popular animated classic, delivering a major Disney+ success. Now, “Ariel the Mermaid” is also available haptically in the home theater.
“Chicago” director Rob Marshall successfully set sail in 2011: With the pirate and mermaid adventure “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Stranger Tides”, he directed the fourth “Pirates Of The Caribbean” part – and celebrated a billion dollar hit with it. So it was no surprise when it was announced that he was taking on the live-action remake of the Disney animated classic “Ariel the Mermaid.
After all, Marshall already had experience with musicals and mermaids casting their eyes on people from the surface. The new “Arielle the Mermaid” film was unable to match the box-office success of “Pirates of the Caribbean 4,” but it did set a Disney+ record. From now on, you don’t have to rely on streaming to watch the fantasy musical at home. As of this week, “Ariel the Mermaid” is available on DVD, Blu-ray and as a 4K Blu-ray.
In addition, the film is available as VOD from several providers, such as Amazon Prime Video*. Of course, you can still access the remake of “Ariel the Mermaid” on Disney+*, as well as the original animated classic.
“ARIELLE THE MERMAID”: QUITE IN DEMAND AT THE CINEMA, ENORMOUSLY POPULAR AT DISNEY+
You certainly know the story: mermaid Arielle (Halle Bailey) has a great fascination with the human world – much to the chagrin of her father Triton (Javier Bardem). After an argument, the rebellious teenager goes to extremes: she makes a magical deal with sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) and gets herself turned into a human. The price: her voice!
As with the remakes of “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella” and “The Lion King,” Marshall’s “Ariel the Mermaid” is a good deal longer than the original. Marshall and screenwriter David Magee (“Life Of Pi”) use the stretched running time, among other things, to give Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) more profile and to create a calmer, perky romance out of the rather impulsive love between humanized mermaid and loyal-looking prince.
Arielle the Mermaid (2023) ✔️ Terrible movie, full of cheaply produced scenes and horrible acting – I liked it zero. And the fact that they exploit the film to make arbitrary statements is sad to me. 2023AWList pic.twitter.com/19iu3YlkU0
– – angi (@takoyangi) September 10, 2023
FILMSTARTS critic Björn Becher judged in his review that the remake is even better than the original” Disney animated film in “the best moments. He nevertheless considered the running time to be overstretched, which detracted from the film’s enjoyment. At the box office, this “Yes, but…” mentality continued: with a box office take of $569.6 million, it was good enough for ninth place so far in the 2023 worldwide box office charts.
Arielle thus swam past “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” and “John Wick: Chapter 4,” among others. However, the musical also took in significantly less than, say, the 2019 release of the “Aladdin” remake ($1.05 billion), the photo-realistic animated “The Lion King” remake ($1.66 billion) or “Beauty and the Beast” with Emma Watson ($1.26 billion).
On Disney+, on the other hand, “Arielle the Mermaid” proved extremely popular: Within the first five days of release, the musical generated 16 million views at the beginning of September. Thus, “Arielle, the Mermaid” celebrated the best movie start on Disney+ in 2023 – at least according to the Disney Group.
But in the meantime, the company also announced that this record only lasted a short time: The Pixar animated film “Elemental” even brought it to 26.4 million views during its first five days on Disney+ in mid-September. If we go by those numbers, the “Ariel the Mermaid” debut is still very impressive. Even considering that it was surpassed by “Elemental” a few days later!
That’s because before Marshall’s musical mermaid movie, a number of big-name theatrical hits made their Disney+ debuts this year. Among them: James Cameron’s mega-blockbuster “Avatar 2: The Way Of Water” and the Marvel titles “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3. “
