Chloe Grace Moretz Cast In ‘The Little Mermaid,’ Joins Kristen Stewart As Universal Princess

Chloe Grace Moretz is about to discover if it really is better down where it’s wetter. According to the Kick-Ass star, she’s headed under the sea to star in a live-action version of The Little Mermaid.

Chloe Grace Moretz broke the big news on Twitter, and it sounds like the 18-year-old actress has been keeping her casting news a secret for quite some time now.

Been waiting a long time to tell you guys!! #TheLittleMermaid going to be a beautiful experience! Can’t wait to show everyone my Mermaid!

— Chloë Grace Moretz (@ChloeGMoretz) November 6, 2015

Chloe Grace Moretz’s finned heroine probably won’t be named Ariel, and she probably won’t have red hair that she styles with a dinglehopper. According to ETonline, her Little Mermaid movie is being produced by Universal Pictures, not Disney. This means that it that it might drastically differ from the popular animated movie based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about a young mermaid princess who trades her voice and her fish tail for a pair of legs. Disney dumped the original tale’s tragic ending in favor of a happily ever after, so it will be interesting to see what fate befalls Chloe Grace Moretz’s little mermaid — will she marry a prince or turn into sea foam?

Chloe Moretz will flip her fins in #TheLittleMermaid: https://t.co/fThdJiCcTf pic.twitter.com/ofvWslnJ7k

— Vulture (@vulture) November 6, 2015

In a way, the Little Mermaid’s dilemma is similar to the one faced by Moretz’s character in her recent romantic drama, If I Stay. It was also about a girl who had to make a tough decision about whether she wanted to leave the only world she’d ever known, and romantic feelings also played a part in her decision. When crafting her version of The Little Mermaid, perhaps Moretz will also draw from her experience playing a vampire in Let Me In. Just like the Little Mermaid, vampire Abby was a strange, supernatural outsider who developed a romantic relationship with a normal human.

Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette) was originally slated to direct The Little Mermaid, but she quit the project due to creative differences. Most actresses would be disappointed to learn that an acclaimed director abandoned a project that they were interested in starring in, but Chloe Grace Moretz has a good reason to be glad that Sofia Coppola gave up on the fairytale film — Variety reports that the director didn’t want to work with Chloe Grace Moretz, and this played a part in her decision to exit the film (it sounded like this was an “it’s me or her” situation). The Little Mermaid currently doesn’t have a director, but Bridget Jones’s Diary screenwriter Richard Curtis is in talks to pen the script.

If Chloe Grace Moretz is looking for advice on playing a fairytale princess, perhaps she should reach out to her Clouds of Sils Maria co-star, Kristen Stewart. Kristen played a butt-kicking version of the Fairest One of All in Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman, and that princess movie did so well at the box office that it scored a sequel. If Moretz’s mermaid doesn’t get the sea foam treatment, perhaps she’ll also get her own film franchise.

There’s no word on which hot young actors are being considered for the role of Moretz’s prince, but perhaps she should try to talk one of her cute costars to sign on for The Little Mermaid. She recently worked with Ansel Elgort in the upcoming crime drama, November Criminals, and she stars alongside Zac Efron in Neighbors 2.

Interestingly, The Little Mermaid isn’t the only sea-centric movie that Chloe has signed on for recently. According to the Wrap, she’s set to start alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Anne Hathaway in The Modern Ocean, an indie flick that “chronicles a competition for valuable shipping routes and the search for a hidden cache of priceless material.”

Do you think Chloe Grace Moretz was a good choice for The Little Mermaid, and who would you like to see as the prince who inspires her character to leave the sea?

[Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images]