'Little Mermaid' flops in China

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What to know

• Little Mermaid flops in China and South Korea, THR blames racist backlash… It seems the colorblind casting of Ariel might have hurt the movie in Asia. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the backlash against Halle Bailey spread fiercely across Chinese and Korean social media and had a real impact on the movie’s performance. It’s made under $5M in each market so far (for comparison, Fast X is at $125 million in China). It’s a real shame that this is happening because it’s obviously so regressive at a time when we need representation — and it could motivate Disney to avoid such progressive decisions in the future. Hopefully, it doesn’t, but the international markets are important to its bottom line. What a bummer. 🧜🏾‍♀️

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