News broke on Thursday that Halle Bailey had been cast in the role of Ariel in Disney’s new live-action version of The Little Mermaid.
The film’s director, Rob Marshall, praised Halle and said that she “possesses that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence, and substance — plus a glorious singing voice” to be the perfect Ariel.
Unsurprisingly, many fans were so excited to see Disney had chosen a black girl to play Ariel with Chrissy Teigen commenting on Halle’s Instagram, “My little [Luna] is gonna see a piece of her in her favorite Disney princess. I cannot wait!!!”
Jordin Sparks also commented, “OMG I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU! And for all the little brown girls who will now see themselves as Ariel too!”
This casting announcement has us so excited for who they’ll cast for characters like King Triton (I’m personally hoping for Idris Elba) and Ariel’s sisters, but it also got us thinking about who Disney might cast as Prince Eric.
And, unsurprisingly, the Internet also has a lot of thoughts! Here are some of our favourites…
A lot of great options there for Prince Eric. In terms of other characters, people are very keen to see Idris Elba, Winston Duke or Terry Crews as King Triton and we are all for that – though, Duke is 32 years old so might be a little young!
There’s also been suggestion that Rihanna should play Sebastian – I mean, can you imagine the songs?!
We are so down with that.
The film doesn’t start production until next year, so it looks like we’ll be waiting until at least 2021 before we see the finished movie.