Today in news that was probably inspired by a Twitter game about combining Hamilton lyrics with Disney movies, Deadline is reporting that Lin-Manuel Miranda has signed on to co-write the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid that we first heard rumblings about in May. Miranda will be working with songwriter Alan Menken, and the Deadline story says they’ll be writing all of the music together—though Miranda’s involvement beyond that has yet to be specifically nailed down. At the very least, he’s going to “supervise the story,” which is better than nothing.
Miranda is a noted Disney fan, with Deadline pointing out that he named his son after Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, so it sounds like this could be the live-action Disney adaptation equivalent of getting a guy like J.J. Abrams to work on the new Star Wars movie. No matter what, Miranda really gets this stuff, so having him on board might be a good way to keep the hordes of Disney fans who really love the original Little Mermaid from turning on the project too quickly.
Lin-Manuel Miranda also wrote the music for the upcoming Disney animated feature Moana, and he’ll be playing a new character in Mary Poppins Returns.