Incidentally, the Little Mermaid was also the #7 highest-grossing film of 2023 at the UK box office.
Top 10 films in U.K. & Ireland in 2023
(Data from Jan. 6, 2023-Jan. 4, 2024)
01. Barbie (Warner Bros): £95.5 million
02. Oppenheimer (Universal): £58.7 million
03. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Universal): £54.8 million
04. Wonka (Warner Bros): £49.2 million – still on release
05. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Disney): £36.7 million
06. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony): £30.7 million
07. The Little Mermaid (Disney): £27.4 million
08. Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning (Part One) (Paramount): £26.6 million
09. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Universal): £26 million
10. Avatar: The Way of Water (Disney): £25.5 million in 2023 (£77.3 million lifetime)
Best Original Score would be fitting. But none of the new original songs are that memorable, to be honest. I'm especially surprised to see The Scuttlebutt included.
At the world premiere in Los Angeles last year, director Rob Marshall said he had been toiling away on the movie for more than five years. They had shot (and re-shot) during the pandemic and were finally here. The movie cost more than $200 million to produce. Internally, Disney thought it could crack $1 billion worldwide. It wound up with $569 million — a far cry from the halcyon days of “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”
