Halle Bailey as “Arielle”
“Arielle, the Mermaid” has not been able to achieve good box office results in China and South Korea. The film grossed just $3.6 million in China in its first ten days. In South Korea it was $4.4 million.
The live-action remakes of Disney classics have been well received in the land of the rising sun so far: “The Jungle Book” (2016) achieved 150 million dollars, “The Lion King” (2019) 120 million dollars, what the two turns strips into real blockbusters. Disney earned $53 million from Aladdin (2019). Similar developments can be observed in South Korea.
“The Little Mermaid”: Reasons for failure in China and South Korea
So why did Little Mermaid flop in both countries? The social media outcry was particularly great when Halle Bailey was announced as the eponymous mermaid. Apparently, many people couldn’t handle the fact that a black actress slipped into the role of a fictional mermaid. The hashtag “NotMyAriel” even trended on Twitter. As a result, the film received overwhelmingly poor audience reviews, culminating in so-called review bombing. Little Mermaid suffered from unverified reviews around the world, but especially in China and South Korea. The local media also contributed to the controversy.
“The discussion about Disney’s forced inclusion of minorities in classic films is not about racism, but about a lazy and irresponsible narrative strategy,” wrote the Chinese “The Global Times”. “Many Chinese netizens said that, like ‘Snow White,’ the image of the mermaid princess from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale has long since taken root in their hearts and that it takes a good dose of imagination to accept the new cast ‘ the paper continued. The article also questioned whether Disney really cares about political correctness, or just sees it as a way to maximize profits.
Director Rob Marshall asserted that there was no agenda regarding the casting of Halle Bailey. He and his crew have cast actresses of every ethnicity. It was about finding the best Ariel, he told The Hollywood Reporter. In the USA, the film also performs significantly better at the box office than in South Korea and China. There are estimates from industry insiders predicting that “Arielle” will gross over $350 million in the US.