'The Little Mermaid' Gets Review-Bombed on IMDb, Prompting Website to Apply 'Alternate' Rating System
39.4% of IMDb reviews for 'The Little Mermaid' have given the movie one star out of a potential 10
Courtesy of Disney
The Little Mermaid doesn't appear to be receiving fair reviews on one of the Internet's largest community movie ratings systems.
Following last week's release of Disney's live-action re-imagining of its 1989 animated classic, this time starring Halle Bailey as the mermaid Ariel, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has shared a note on its reviews page for the film describing "unusual activity" within its ratings for the movie.
"Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title," a note on the page reads as of Thursday. "To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied."
The Little Mermaid has received roughly 43,000 user ratings on IMDb since its release last Friday; 17,000 of those users have granted the movie one star out of 10, making for 39.4% of its reviews, per the website. The movie's 'unweighted mean' stands at 4.7, though IMDb currently officially lists the movie at 7.0 out of a possible 10 stars.
Representatives for IMDb did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment Thursday.
The film, which opened to $117 million as the top film at the domestic box office over Memorial Day Weekend, continues to receive racist backlash due to the casting of Bailey, 23, as Ariel. Since her casting was announced in 2019, Bailey has had racist comments made against her online.
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Broadway legend Stephanie Mills took to Facebook last Wednesday to write Bailey an open letter supporting her as she recalled her own experience with racist backlash to her casting as Dorothy for the Broadway musical The Wiz back in 1975.
"Halle, God put you in this place and time ... So let your light shine," Mills, 66, wrote in the open letter. "Hold your head up high, walk in your peace, and celebrate the greatness that you are.”
Courtesy of Disney
The film's director Rob Marshall recently told Deadline he "didn't think that it was a big deal, casting a woman of color," while noting past online comments made against the film's star.
"I thought, 'that's an archaic way to see the world,' " he said of those who opposed Bailey's casting back in 2019. "When that controversy arose, from narrow-minded people, I thought, 'Wow, that really feels like it's coming from another century. Are we really still there?' "
Marshall, whose directing credits also include, Chicago (2002), Into the Woods (2014) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018), pointed out that Bailey's casting has given children the opportunity to see themselves in one of Disney's classic stories.
"But the bonus that came with that casting, and I wasn't aware of it at the time, is seeing these young girls of color and young boys of color looking at her and thinking, 'Wow, I'm represented,' " he said. "It was very, very moving to me."
The Little Mermaid is playing in theaters now.
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