Melissa McCarthy is in talks to play Ursula in ‘The Little Mermaid’.
The 48-year-old actress is set to take on the role of the sea witch in the upcoming live-action adaptation of the Disney cartoon classic, Variety reports.
Rob Marshall, who directed ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ will helm the new movie, which will include original songs from the 1989 animated film, along with new tunes from Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alan Menken.
Miranda is producing the film along with Marshall, Marc Platt and John DeLuca, while David Magee wrote the script.
Disney is committed to rebooting its classic animations with ‘The Jungle Book’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Dumbo’ all hitting cinemas in recent times with ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Snow White’ to follow among others.
However, acclaimed composer Alan Menken – who has won Academy Awards for his scores on Disney films ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Pocahontas’ – recently claimed that despite the string of reboots 1995’s ‘Pocahontas’ probably won’t be remade.
The musician argued that due to "modern sensibilities" it would be difficult to do a retelling of the film, which gives a fictionalised account of a Native American woman of the same name and her historical encounter with Englishman John Smith and the Jamestown settlers that arrived from the Virginia Company.
Melissa McCarthy to play Ursula in The Little Mermaid
