It’s been a few years since we last received an update on the Disney+ remake of Splash, which has Godmothered star Jillian Bell attached to star. Well, there is finally some movement on the project.
According to Deadline, Sarah Rothschild, who wrote the Netflix movie The Sleepover, has been tapped to pen the latest draft of the script for the Disney/Imagine/Free Association project. Marja-Lewis Ryan (The L Word: Generation Q) wrote an earlier draft of the Splash remake.
Channing Tatum was also attached to star and produce alongside Bell, but at this time there is no confirmation as to whether he is still involved with the project in any capacity.
Released in 1984, the original Splash was directed by Ron Howard, from a screenplay by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, and Bruce Jay Friedman, and a story by Friedman and producer Brian Grazer, and starring Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy, and Eugene Levy. It involves a young man who falls in love with a mysterious woman who is secretly a mermaid. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
The movie was a hit for Disney at the time, produced on an $11 million budget. Splash grossed $6.2 million in its opening weekend and finished its run with a gross of $69.8 million in North America. In 1988, Splash, Too was released as television film, and it is safe to say it wasn’t received as well as its predecessor.