Mena Massoud, who played the star role in Disney’s live-action “Aladdin,” has scrubbed his Twitter account. According to TMZ, Massoud made a statement on Twitter about “The Little Mermaid,” which is set to be released on May 26, Memorial Day weekend. Many outlets are reporting that Disney expects the film to open at $110 million for the four-day total.
Deadline compared “The Little Mermaid” to other Memorial Day weekend openings, including “Pirates of the Carribbean: At World’s End,” which opened at $153 million in 2007, and Disney’s live-action “Aladdin,” which made $116.8 million in 2019, before the pandemic. These comparisons made their way around the internet, and onto Twitter. The account for The Hollywood Handle tweeted about the information, saying “‘THE LITTLE MERMAID’ is tracking to earn $115M on its domestic box office opening weekend. In comparison, ‘ALADDIN’ earned $112M on its opening.”
In response, Massoud tweeted, referring to “Aladdin,” saying, “Our film was unique in that audiences went to watch it multiple times. It’s the only way we reached the billion dollar mark with our opening. My guess is TLM doesn’t cross the billion mark but will undoubtedly get a sequel.”
According to TMZ, the discourse in light of the comment ran rampant. The site mentioned that comments varied. Some thought Massoud’s comment was a spiteful put-down, while others pointed to his post credits after “Aladdin,” where his roles have been sparse since the film. The outlet invited readers to join the conversation on the “Aladdin” subject via a Twitter thread that the article linked.
After the conversation began, it started to gain momentum and went viral, receiving continuous attention. TMZ reports that it appeared that in response, Massoud deleted, deactivated or hid his Twitter account, as the handle is no longer available on the platform. Subsequently, his original tweet is not available either. TMZ included screenshots of the tweet, as seen below.
