According to Entertainment Weekly, co-director Ron Clements brought the film's concept to Disney in 1985, but it was vetoed because it was considered too similar to a Splash - Una sirena a Manhattan (1983) sequel that was in development at Disney. In 1985, Clements, while finishing work on Basil l'investigatopo (1986), was browsing through a bookstore and chanced upon a copy of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, and found "The Little Mermaid" most fascinating, cinematic, and intriguing of all. He subsequently presented a two-page story treatment of both the film and Il pianeta del tesoro (2002) to Disney CEO Michael Eisner and chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg at a 'gong show' idea suggestion meeting where everyone at Walt Disney Feature Animation is supposed to come up with at least five new ideas for animated features; an idea Katzenberg came up with when he was working at Paramount Pictures. Both of them passed on the idea; Katzenberg changed his mind the next day and gave it the green light along with Oliver & Company (1988), but not Il pianeta del tesoro (2002) due to the technology, at the time, not being sophisticated and advanced enough to capture the filmmakers' vision for the film. Early in production, Katzenberg warned Clements and John Musker that their film would be perceived as a "girl's film" and that it would make less money at the box office than Oliver & Company. As the film neared completion, Katzenberg was forced to backtrack and admit that he thought that the studio had a major hit in the making.

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