‘Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken’ is Dreamworks’ Solution to ‘The Little Mermaid’

Disney is gearing up for May to be the return of Ariel with The Little Mermaid, but Dreamworks has another sea creature-driven show in mind for the summer.

Check out the trailer for Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken:

Here’s the official movie description:

Sometimes the hero you are meant to be lies just beneath the surface.

This summer, DreamWorks Animation dives into the turbulent waters of high school with a hilarious, heartfelt action comedy about a shy teenager who discovers that she’s part of a legendary royal lineage of mythical sea krakens and that her destiny, in the depths of the oceans, is bigger than she ever dreamed.

 Sweet, awkward 16-year-old Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before franchise) is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, but she mostly just feels invisible.

 She’s math-tutoring her skater-boy crush (Jaboukie Young-White, Ralph Breaks the Internet), who only seems to admire her for her fractals, and she’s prevented from hanging out with the cool kids at the beach because her over-protective supermom (Oscar® nominee Toni Collette, Knives Out), has forbade Ruby from ever getting in the water.

But when she breaks her mom’s #1 rule, Ruby will discover that she is a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queens and is destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother (Academy Award® winner Jane Fonda), the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas.

The Kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against the vain, power-hungry mermaids who have been battling with the Kraken for eons. There’s one major, and immediate, problem with that: The school’s beautiful, popular new girl, Chelsea (Emmy winner Annie Murphy, Schitt’s Creek) just happens to be a mermaid. Ruby will ultimately need to embrace who she is and go big to protect those she loves most.

I’ll admit, the description does get pretty extensive when it comes to the lore, but I guess Dreamworks has a lot of PR to do if they want to make sure that audiences won’t mistake this for The Little Mermaid. I mean, they could have at least tried to make Chelsea look a little different from Ariel, but she’s all there with the red hair and green scales—she even wields a glowing trident like in the Disney version.

The film is directed by Kirk DeMicco who had also helmed Vivo and The Croods, so we should have an idea of what to expect with the movie. Personally, I’m just happy Dreamworks is presenting something that’s completely new that should be a nice break from all the big nostalgia-baiting films.

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is set to hit theaters this summer.