Director Rob Marshall reveals reason for Scuttle's species change in 'The Little Mermaid'

In the upcoming live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, director Rob Marshall has made some significant changes to the character Scuttle, Ariel's supposed-to-be seagull friend.

Speaking to IndieWire Rob Marshall explained that he not only changed Scuttle's appearance but also changed her species. Instead of being a squawking seagull, Scuttle is now a diving bird called a gannet.

Marshall's intention behind this change was to emphasize that Ariel has never been to the surface before, he explained.

He wanted to elevate the moment where Ariel discovers land for the first time, by ensuring she has never experienced the surface before.

“After she sings ‘Part of Your World’ and she goes [to the surface] for the first time, it’s so shocking and so thrilling. It’s better storytelling,” Marshall said.

“But then I realized, well, Scuttle, how does she know everything that’s up there? We decided to make her a diving bird so that she could come down and Ariel could meet Scuttle in the water and get all that information there, not above.”

Marshall and his team considered various diving bird species and ultimately settled on the Northern gannet, the largest of its kind, as the inspiration for Scuttle's new appearance.

“We looked at different ones. There was a cormorant, there was a gannet,” Marshall said.

“They stay underwater for many, many minutes and then go back up. We looked at all the different versions of what they looked like. It just seemed so fun and wonderful and it just fit Awkwafina more. We liked it so much more and so I chose to do that, but it’s really important.”

Marshall believes it was a necessary and intelligent decision for the story.

The Little Mermaid is a live-action remake of Disney's 1989 animated film of the same name, which itself is loosely based on the 1837 fairy tale with an identical title by Hans Christian Andersen.