Melissa McCarthy's Version Of Poor Unfortunate Souls From The Live-Action 'The Little Mermaid' Debuted At CinemaCon
Melissa McCarthy has hit another home run, but this time, it’s underwater. During CinemaCon this past week, a teaser trailer for Ursula’s signature act, “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” was shown to the public. As a Variety article points out, McCarthy’s performance was well-received, calling her acting and singing “show-stopping.” She is currently one of the most talented working actresses and has shown her skills in acting and singing on numerous occasions.
The musical number “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” which was first released in the 1989 version of A Little Mermaid, has Ursula, the main baddie, as the focus of attention. She steals the show and produces a really incredible act, and McCarthy has apparently nailed it. McCarthy replaces Pat Carroll as Ursula in the live-action version.
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Bringing characters that were previously animations to the silver screen is a huge challenge. The actor has to understand who the character is and what their essence is all about, while bringing a fresh new approach to avoid redundancy. From the Variety article, it seems that McCarthy was able to do just that: “She’s dishy. She’s a conniving broad. You can’t help but love her at the same time.”
It seems that Disney will keep using its early and late 90s animations as future cash cows, as we’ve seen from The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast. During the same event, Disney’s distribution team argued that “as we’ve seen with recent box office results, great stories never go out of fashion.”
The Little Mermaid arrives on May 26th. The cast is full of stars; McCarthy is the main villain (Ursula), Halle Bailey will play the role of Ariel, and Javier Bardem and Noma Dumezweni will be, respectively, King Triton and Queen Selina. Jonah Hauer King will play Prince Eric.
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