Special effects artist who broke her wrist Little Mermaid remake sue

Special effects artist who broke her wrist falling from beach scene she was building for Disney’s live action Little Mermaid remake sues for £150,000

• Christine Overs, 74, fell onto a concrete floor when the set gave way in 2020
• She says the injury has ruined her career which requires the use of her fingers

A special effects artist who broke her wrist while filming for Disney’s live action Little Mermaid remake is suing for £150,000.

Veteran model-maker Christine Overs, 74, fell from a beach scene and onto a concrete floor when part of the set gave way during production of the blockbuster, starring Halle Bailey, at Pinewood Studios in October 2020.

Ms Overs, who specialises in creating beach and snow scenes, says the injury to her left wrist has ruined her career which requires precise finger movements because she now struggles even to do up buttons and zips, or lace shoes.

The ‘highly prized’ artist has previously worked on sets on GoldenEye, Aliens, Dune and Superman IV and is a former member of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. 

Sandcastle Pictures Ltd – the company set up to make the Disney movie – has admitted liability for the fall, but is disputing the amount she is claiming in a case at Central London County Court.

Christine Overs, 74, a special effects artist who broke her wrist while filming for Disney’s live action Little Mermaid remake is suing for £150,000

The veteran model-maker fell from a beach scene and onto a concrete floor when part of the set gave way during production of the blockbuster (pictured), at Pinewood Studios in October 2020

The Disney film grossed £450m at the box office and saw Halle Bailey (pictured) star as Ariel

Ms Overs, of Taplow, Bucks, has enjoyed a long career in special effects, beginning with work on Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits in 1981 before amassing a string of screen credits for Hollywood blockbusters.

READ MORE: Halle Bailey channels Ariel from her film The Little Mermaid in her blue bikini top and matching skirt: ‘They know you’re an angel’ 

She was sculpting a breach scene in a lagoon for Disney’s £450m grossing Little Mermaid when she suffered her fall.

The beach was constructed several feet off the ground and she fell from the makeshift access step to the fake ‘beach’ when part of it gave way, her lawyers say.

Ms Overs needed surgery to fit five steel pins and a ‘fixator’ from wrist to elbow to stabilise her arm.

The injuries left her with ‘ongoing wrist pain’ and Ms Overs is ‘less dexterous with her hand’, her lawyers say.

Her work involves intricate hand movements, but Ms Overs now has problems even tackling buttons, laces and zips, it is claimed.

‘She also has ongoing hypersensitivity on the left ring and little fingers, her grip strength is poor and she suffers swelling on the border of the wrist.’

She was left with a ‘substantial level of disability’, she was unable to drive for a year after the accident and had disrupted sleep and ongoing problems with fine finger movements.

Ms Overs would normally have expected to carry on working in her specialist niche well into her eighties, said her barrister, Colm Nugent, during a hearing last week.

But the fracture had dented her working potential in this ‘very specialist profession,’ he said.

The Little Mermaid which also stars Melissa McCarthy and Javier Bardem was released earlier this year and will drop on streaming giant Disney+ on September 6

‘She is still working, but just doing less work,’ he told Recorder Catherine Rowlands in a pre-trial hearing last week.

Ms Overs’ lawyers blame the movie makers, saying they ‘did not provide any adequate access to the set, which led to the claimant falling from a makeshift polystyrene step and injuring her wrist’.

The company has admitted liability for her fall, but is contesting the amount of compensation she is due.

The case reached court for a pre-trial hearing during which lawyers hammered out issues including the legal costs of a trial to decide the amount of damages, to take place at a later date.

Ms Overs worked as part of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop on Neverending Story III in 1994 and has also worked in TV, creating makeup effects for London’s Burning and model-making for the Thomas the Tank Engine children’s series between 2002 and 2006.

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