Sofia Coppola is in negotiations to snag the director's chair for the upcoming live-action version of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.
According to Deadline, Copploa would be working with Universal Pictures to bring "The Little Mermaid" to life. However, don't expect the film to be anything like the Disney version. The film has no affiliation with Disney, so there is a possibility the script will be aimed towards a more mature audience.
"The intention is to move quickly," Deadline reports. "This is a departure for Coppola in that her projects are usually focused on adult themes. She's got kids and it wouldn't be shocking if she wanted to please them with a movie they can see and understand. Working Title is currently in production on Everest, the drama about the climbing disaster."
There is no set release date for the live-action "The Little Mermaid."
Another fairytale remake making headlines lately is the Disney film "Maleficent," starring Angelina Jolie. The actress stars in the live-action "Sleeping Beauty" film, and recently explained to Entertainment Weekly why she was drawn to the title character.
"Maleficent was always so elegant. She was always in control. And to play her was difficult," Jolie told EW. "I worked on my voice a lot. She's bigger than me. She's on a different level of performance than I have ever done. She's very still. She's very sure of her voice. I kept playing with these different types of British voices, making my voice darker and scarier."
"I was giving my kids a bath, and I started making up other stories about Maleficent. They weren't really paying attention to me...until I started to mess around with this playful [singsongy] voice," Jolie added. "It gets very, very dark, but it had these colors. My kids started laughing. And that's how I would rehearse my scenes. I would do it until my kids were somehow smiling or thought it was funny, because you have to do that and go there with her. Then it was really fun; it was actually quite freeing as an artist to do something so completely nuts."
"Maleficent" will be released to theaters on May 30.
