The 2023 live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid takes place in the fictional underwater kingdom of Atlantica and a town on the coast of the Caribbean. Still, the movie’s cast and crew never ventured to the Caribbean to film scenes. The Disney film, which is the latest of a string of live-action remakes of animation classics from the production studio, obviously utilized extensive computer-generated imagery (CGI) and special effects to create the colorful and realistic underwater world of The Little Mermaid. However, a handful of sequences were captured on location on one island in Europe.
The Little Mermaid (2023) cast includes Halle Bailey as Ariel, Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Noma Dumezweni as Queen Selina, Art Malik as Sir Grimsby, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, and Awkwafina as Scuttle. Some of their characters were purely created with the use of CGI (like Sebastian, Flounder, and Scuttle), so the actors only recorded their scenes in a sound booth. But stars like Bailey, Hauer-King, Dumezweni, and others got to travel to beautiful scenic locations to film their parts.
Sardinia, Italy
The Little Mermaid cast and crew ventured to Sardinia, Italy, an island off the coast of the boot-shaped European country in the Mediterranean Sea, to shoot a handful of the out-of-the-water scenes. According to Decider, the Caribbean coastal sequences were filmed on the other side of the ocean, but with a $250–265 million budget, the production crew was able to make the Italian island look like a Caribbean kingdom. They utilized numerous locations in Sardinia to bring the world of the Disney classic to life.
A majority of the filming occurred in the village of Santa Teresa di Gallura on the northern coast of the island from June to July 2021. The cast and crew of The Little Mermaid also shot some scenes in the town of Castelsardo in Sardinia, Italy, which is where Prince Eric’s castle was located. The castle itself was created with CGI, so Jonah Hauer-King and other actors did not film those scenes in an actual castle on the island. Other locations used in Sardinia, Italy, for the 2023 Disney movie were the towns of Rena di Metteu and Cala Moresca. Spiaggia di Rena Majore in Aglientu was also used as the beach Ariel and Eric washed up on.
Pinewood Studios, England
The nature of The Little Mermaid meant that the cast and crew could not use practical locations for many scenes in the 2023 movie. As a result, they utilized Pinewood Studios in the village of Iver Heath, England, which is just outside London. The film and television studio contains impressive water stages, making it the perfect place to shoot the sea sequences, like the big storm scene where Ariel saves Eric. Additionally, the crew built sets for the interior of Eric’s castles at Pinewood Studios. So, most of the scenes in The Little Mermaid were captured at the studio in England.
