The Little Mermaid producers face £150k lawsuit from special effects artist for on-set injury

Veteran special effects artist Christine Overs is suing the producers of Disney’s 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid for £150,000 ($191,000) over an on-set injury she sustained throughout manufacturing.

Throughout a latest listening to at Central London’s County Court docket, Overs, who’s now 74, claims she had been sculpting part of the lagoon scene on an elevated seaside set at Pinewood Studios when a makeshift entry step gave means.

Overs says she then fell a number of ft to the concrete flooring and broke her wrist. She underwent surgical procedure to suit 5 metal pins and a “fixator” from wrist to elbow with a purpose to stabilise her arm.

Attorneys for the “highly-prized” artist advised the court docket that the accidents she sustained have precipitated her “ongoing wrist ache”, based on The Evening Standard.

Additionally they alleged that she was left with a “substantial stage of incapacity” and is “much less dexterous along with her hand”.

“She additionally has ongoing hypersensitivity on the left ring and little fingers, her grip power is poor and she or he suffers swelling on the border of the wrist,” they stated.

At a earlier listening to final week, Overs’ legal professionals advised the court docket that the injury has affected the quantity of labor she’s in a position to do.

“She continues to be working, however simply doing much less work,” barrister Colm Nugent stated of Overs, who had anticipated to proceed working into her eighties on this “very specialist occupation”.

Attorneys have accused the film’s creators of failing to “present any enough entry to the set, which led to the claimant falling from a makeshift polystyrene step and injuring her wrist”.

Whereas Sandcastle Photos, the manufacturing firm employed by Disney to make The Little Mermaid, has admitted full legal responsibility for Overs’ fall, it’s contesting the £150k compensation she’s due.

The authorized prices of a trial, which is scheduled to happen at a later date, had been decided finally week’s pre-trial listening to.

The Unbiased has contacted Disney and Sandcastle Photos for remark.

Launched in cinemas in Might, The Little Mermaid starred Halle Bailey as the favored childhood princess. The film grossed over $564m (£ 441.4) worldwide on the field workplace.

It was principally well-received by critics and at present holds a score of 67 per cent on assessment aggregator web site Rotten Tomatoes.

The Unbiased’s Clarisse Loughrey argued, nonetheless, that “a luminous Halle Bailey apart, this live-action remake stinks”, in her two-star assessment.

“Good casting can’t cowl up the ugly visuals and lack of artistic threat,” she wrote.