Little Mermaid reboot: Halle Bailey shares first photo as Ariel

As the song goes, her voice is like a bell, she’s their sister, Ariel. In Disney’s upcoming live-action Little Mermaid movie, Halle Bailey, 21, stars as mermaid Ariel, who longs to be human. On Monday, Bailey shared a photo of herself in the water wearing her mermaid tail. In just five hours, it’s earned more than 320,000 likes.

“After auditioning for this film when i was 18 just about to turn 19, to now finishing filming through a pandemic when I turned 21 … we have finally made it,” Bailey wrote. “I cannot wait for time to speed up so you all can watch this film because it was made with so much love (plus blood sweat and tears).”

Bailey sings in the duo Chloe x Halle with her older sister Chloe Bailey, and also stars in the sitcom Grown-ish, a spinoff of the ABC show Black-ish.

“After an extensive search, it was abundantly clear that Halle possesses that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence and substance — plus a glorious singing voice — all intrinsic qualities necessary to play this iconic role,” director Rob Marshall said when Bailey was cast.

The live-action Little Mermaid is a Disney adaptation of the studio’s 1989 animated film. Jonah Hauer-King plays Ariel’s love interest, Prince Eric, with Melissa McCarthy as sea witch Ursula, who gives Ariel legs in exchange for her voice. Javier Bardem plays King Triton; Daveed Diggs is singing crab Sebastian; Jacob Tremblay is Flounder the nervous fish; and Awkwafina plays Scuttle the seagull who helps Ariel misidentify her thingamabobs, whozits and whatzits.

The film will include songs from the original animated movie by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, in addition to new songs by Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda. It does not yet have a release date.