Variety is reporting that Kick-Ass star Chloë Grace Moretz will be the fin-bedecked lead in Universal’s troubled live-action version of The Little Mermaid. Moretz, who recently filmed the itemized alien thriller The 5th Wave, and who’s expected to appear in the upcoming Neighbors 2, will play the transformation-prone protagonist of Hans Christian Anderson’s classic tale.
Four Weddings And A Funeral and Love, Actually screenwriter Richard Curtis is also in talks to pen the script, ensuring that whatever this new version lacks in catchy undersea anthems, it makes up in bumbling British charm. (If you’re imagining Hugh Grant as a befuddled, grinning octopus right now, our work here is probably done.) Moretz and Curtis are the first big names to join the project since director Sofia Coppola departed it earlier this year; the director cited “creative differences” (possibly relating to her desire to cast a relative unknown instead of the established Moretz) for walking away—a thing she could do because of her human legs, which we’re just going to take as a stealthy Little Mermaid slam.