Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay are in talks for ‘The Little Mermaid’.
The ‘Ocean’s 8’ star and the ‘Room’ actor are both reportedly making deals to voice roles in the upcoming live-action adaptation of the Disney cartoon classic with Awkwafina, 31, set to portray Scuttle, the seagull while the 12-year-old actor will lend his voice to the role of faithful fish friend Flounder.
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.
Lin-Manuel is producing the film along with the director, Marc Platt and John DeLuca, from a script written by David Magee.
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 and ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Snow White’ set 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.
Awkwafina made her film breakthrough in 2018 with roles in ‘Ocean’s 8’ and ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ and prior to this, the rapper released two studio albums titled ‘Yellow Ranger’ and’ In Fina We Trust’.
Jacob is best known for starring as Jack Newsome alongside Brie Larson in ‘Room’ as well as his role as August Pullman, a child with Treacher Collins syndrome, in the drama ‘Wonder’.
Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay in talks for The Little Mermaid
