A question I have been getting all year has finally been answered. Who is playing Ariel’s mother in Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid?
According to Deadline, Noma Dumezweni, who is best known for playing Hermione on Broadway, has joined the cast. The trade could not confirm who she is playing but as far as I have been told, she will indeed play Athena, Ariel’s mother and Queen of Atlantica.
Read: Nick Offerman Offered Role of Smee in ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’
Halle Bailey leads the film as Ariel, with Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, also set to star is Melissa McCarthy as the villainous Sea Witch Ursula, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, Awkwafina as Scuttle, and Emily Coates in unconfirmed role.
Directed by Rob Marshall (Mary Poppins Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides), the film will feature music from the 1989 animated classic as well as four brand-new songs. Menken has teased that those songs will consist of new ones for both King Triton (Bardem) and Scuttle (Awkwafina), we also hear Prince Eric will get his own song as well, and that another will feature a duo between both Ariel and Eric.
Production on the project begins this month. Disney has not officially set a release date for the film, but it will not be going to Disney+ like Pinocchio and Peter Pan and Wendy before it.
