Ever since its release in May, the live-action version of The Little Mermaid by Disney has been making waves all over the world. After having a controversial lead-up to the release owing to Halle Bailey, the first person of colour to be cast in the main role, what also grabbed eyeballs was the cost of the star's hair in the film. Halle Bailey's Oscar-nominated hair designer for the film, Camille Friend, features a video on her account that mentions the cost to recreate the lead character, Ariel's iconic red hair was around whopping 150k dollars or 1.2 crores.
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So what made the look so over-the-top costly? In the video interview by beauty reporter, Kirbie Johnson, Camille reveals that the designer actually embraced Halle's natural hair texture and they preferred to change her hair colour, instead of the texture altogether. The shade of red was chosen while keeping Halle's skin tone and eye colour in mind. They used four shades to create it, auburn, red-orange and two shades of blonde.
"Halle's hair was her natural locks. Camille noted that they did think about trying wigs but when they tried to let her locks flat underneath, it didn't look right. Camille said that they used four shades of hair, auburn, red-orange and two shades of blonde which they wrapped around Halle's natural locks," the reporter said in the video.
She added that, "Camille said that in between the locks, they incorporated three beaded 3 C hair textures so that her hair was not only flowing underwater but onto too." It also added, "Camille told Variety her hair likely cost around $150K and she told me it took months of sketching and working with the filmmakers."
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We are truly loving this version of the mermaid! The movie made a big splash with its box-office collection of reportedly $163.5 million during the opening weekend alone in the US and $68.3 million in International markets. As Disney+ typically follows a 90-day period before its theatrical releases are taken on their streaming platform we may see the live-action version of The Little Mermaid come to Disney+ as early as August 2023.
