Walt Disney’sThe Little Mermaidwas created out of sheer desperation. The studio hadn’t had an animated hit in two decades (or blockbuster since 1961’s101 Dalmations). The entire ’80s passed them by without even a minor hit—a radically missed opportunity given the era’s optimism (as ch...
Growing up,Halle Baileywas obsessed with “The Little Mermaid,” wearing out her family’s VHS tape watching and rewatching the 1989 Disney animated hit and pretending to be Ariel every time she went swimming. “Her sense of longing, her searching for herself, was something that I could res...