Sofia Coppola Is Doing A Live Action THE LITTLE MERMAID

Sofia Coppola has directed a couple of absolutely, truly amazing movies (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette, for my money), but they've all been pretty much realistic (even Marie Antoinette, which used anachronism to terrific effect). The idea of Coppola taking her usual themes and going fantastical with them - well, that's exciting. 

This was announced yesterday but got lost in the shuffle around here: Coppola is in talks to direct a live action version of the Hans Christian Anderson story The Little Mermaid (I think someone did a cartoon of it once, and it did pretty well). The current script is by Caroline Thompson, who wrote Edward Scissorhands and The Corpse Bride, which gives her a different enough perspective and tone that the idea of the two of them working together is very cool. 

What would a Coppola LIttle Mermaid be like? You can already see the edges of it - the bored, unhappy undersea princess who escapes to the world above and falls in sort of twee love feels up Coppola's alley. I do hope that she actually leans into some of the big emotions of the story - the mermaid is giving up her life for love, after all. This is a story that could break her out of her understated ways (well, again, Marie Antoinette definitely has a bigger energy than her other films), and I'm curious how she handles FX.

The idea of Coppola making a huge movie, with a big undersea kingdom and maybe an ocean beast is kind of incredible. And since her divorce from Spike Jonze has powered two brilliant movies - Her and Lost In Translation - maybe this will be her answer movie to Where The Wild Things Are.