Whoever at Disney had the idea of adapting their animated classics to live-action deserves a big fat bonus. Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book, Dumbo, Aladdin, and The Lion King have been huge money-spinners, with their next big entry a reworking of much-loved The Little Mermaid. The 1989 movie is considered to have heralded a new golden age for Disney’s Animation Studios and all eyes will be on director Rob Marshall’s take on life down where it’s wetter (under the sea).

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That interest meant the news that Halle Bailey had been cast as Ariel caused a sensation. As half of R&B group Chloe x Halle, she’s got the pipes for the role and must have put in one heck of an audition to beat out the many competitors. The movie is currently shooting in Sardinia, Italy, and we got our first images of Bailey earlier this month, showing her sporting a modern wetsuit and rubber mermaid tail (though this will almost certainly be replaced with CGI).

Now we have some new pictures of her hiding out in the back of a wagon. Check them out:

First Look at Halle Bailey as Ariel in the live action #LittleMermaid movie! Thoughts?!
🦀🐠🌊🧜🏻‍♀️

— 3C Films (@3CFilm) June 21, 2021

My thinking is that this will come soon after she’s made her fateful decision to leave the ocean to live on the surface. It seems that she’s in hiding under some kind of tarp, so perhaps this what happens after Ursula disguises herself as ‘Vanessa’ and makes a move on Eric.

It’s difficult to make any big guesses about what’ll be in the movie as we still don’t know when it’s set. Some had assumed it’d be a contemporary update given that we’d seen Ariel in a wetsuit, though the presence of a horse-drawn cart in these new photos could mean that the diving gear was simply for rehearsals.

Either way, with a release expected in 2022 I hope we get a teaser trailer showing off The Little Mermaid soon.