Sofia Coppola to Direct Live Action Little Mermaid

Sofia Coppola is going to direct a live action version of The Little Mermaid. This may well be one of the coolest pieces of movie news so far this decade, and we’ll tell you for why.

All signs suggest that this live action version is going to keep to the original Hans Christian Anderson book. In other words, there will be no Disney cruise into the ocean sunset for Ariel this time round (and she probably won’t be named Ariel, either). In the original version (SPOILER ALERT) the mermaid fails in her quest to win the heart of the prince, and dissolves into sea foam the morning after he marries another woman. There are also a few other grisly details that Old Uncle Walt decided to leave on the cutting room floor, and we’re hopeful that the script, which is currently being reworked by Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands), will make the most of these.

Sofia Coppola is not just the hanger-on daughter of Francis Ford Coppola; she is in fact a pretty darn amazing director in her own right. Her oeuvre includes The Bling Ring, Somewhere, Marie Antoinette, Lost in Translation, and The Virgin Suicides, all very accomplished films, and each of them quite different. Her work often has a wonderfully poetic and almost dreamlike quality, which should lend itself very well to a production of the classic fairy tale.

There is a lot of scope for this tragic fantasy love story to be a really beautiful and affecting piece of cinema, especially now that a director like Coppola is steering the ship. All of which adds up to us being pretty excited to take a gander at this film, which might be upon us sooner than we think, as according to Deadline ‘the intention is to move quickly’ now that Coppola is on board.