Jonah Hauer-King would come back as Prince Eric. Asked at the Toronto International Film Festival whether he would return for a sequel to Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid, the actor did not hedge, and he made it clear the appeal is mostly about who he would be working with again.
“I love Halle so much,” he said of co-star Halle Bailey. “She’s still a very dear friend. I had a great time in that film. If you’re up for it, I’m down. I’m down.”
The Story A Sequel Would Tell
There is already a template. The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, released straight to video in 2000, picks up twelve years after the original. Ariel and Eric have a daughter named Melody, and Ariel keeps her away from the ocean much the way King Triton once kept Ariel away from the surface. Melody goes anyway.
Hauer-King worked his way toward that plot out loud when the question came up, arriving at the neat symmetry of it, that the sequel runs the original in reverse. Bailey has described it the same way in the past, calling Return to the Sea a film she loves.
He has also thought about the practical side of playing a father. Talking about the idea last year, he noted he was growing a beard at the time and wondered aloud whether it was adding a few years to him.
Disney Has Not Said Anything
No sequel has been announced, and the studio has given no public indication that one is in development. The 2023 film took $569.6 million worldwide against a budget reported at roughly $200 million before marketing, a result solid enough to be worth something but not the kind that forces a follow-up onto the schedule.
Disney’s live-action calendar is also crowded, and the most recent entry had a difficult run. The live-action Moana went to digital in September after a bruising summer in theaters, which is the more recent data point any decision about another remake sequel would be measured against.
What He Is Doing Instead
Hauer-King was in Toronto for The Face of Horror, Anna Biller’s medieval ghost story, which had its world premiere in the festival’s Midnight Madness program on September 11. He plays Edward, a knight who is a good deal less charming than Eric, in a film shot as a deliberate throwback to the Hammer horror pictures of the 1960s and 1970s.
Since The Little Mermaid he has worked steadily across film and television, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, A House of Dynamite and the Doctor Who episode “Lucky Day.” The Ariel question has followed him through most of it, and his answer has not changed.
For the latest news and updates make sure to follow us on social media! Facebook | Twitter | Threads | Instagram | TikTok
