On Friday, we heard that Disney was hoping to cast Melissa McCarthy as the sea witch Ursula in the live-action Little Mermaid movie it will eventually make, and now a couple other big roles might’ve been filled in already. According to Deadline, Crazy Rich Asians breakout Awkwafina and little boy who was in every movie for a while Jacob Tremblay are “in talks” to join the movie as well. If these talks work out, Tremblay will be playing lovable little fish Flounder, with Awkwafina playing lovably misinformed seagull buddy Scuttle—or is he a double-agent working for King Triton to keep Ariel from learning too much about the surface world? That’s an angle that the original movie never really explored, so hopefully this remake will correct that.
This new movie is coming from director Rob Marshall (Mary Poppins Returns), with original composer Alan Menken writing new music alongside some guy named Lin-Manuel Miranda. The two of them could probably write a really killer ballad for Awkwafina’s Scuttle where she works through her conflicted feelings about betraying Ariel while trying to fulfill her loyalty to King Triton, for the record. Although, on the other hand, Scuttle is a bird… so why would he have ever met a king who lives under the sea and famously distrusts land-folk? This new movie is going to have to explain a whole lot of things.