Beauty and the Beast (Live-Action)

[Marce82]

Well ho-lee crap!

Interestingly, I noticed the effeminate LeFou thing during the Gaston number. When I saw the preview at disneyland a couple of weeks ago, which featured the ENTIRE Belle number, I didn't notice it... darn, now I'm really curious to see this film!!!

[taei]

Well... that sucks.

Why not just create new characters? They already made 2 new objects in the castle...

Also, why do I have a feeling that Gaston is going to be the naive idiot being manipulated by LeFou? I really hope Gaston is as evil as he was in the animated movie.

[Sotiris]

I'm glad they're fleshing out LeFou a bit. I'm guessing they're going to somewhat redeem him in the end?

“LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston,” reveals Condon. “He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realizing that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its pay-off at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”

Source: http://attitude.co.uk/world-exclusive-b ... character/

[supertalies]

Also, why do I have a feeling that Gaston is going to be the naive idiot being manipulated by LeFou? I really hope Gaston is as evil as he was in the animated movie.

I actually also have a feeling that LeFou will be slightly redeemed. LeFou will probably stand up for himself at the end of the movie. He will be idolizing Gaston throughout the movie but then, at the end, realize that Gaston doesn't really care about him and was just using him. Then he'll probably help Belle of the Beast in some way to defeat Gaston and be present at their wedding or something like that.

[D82]

New clip:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN5R7cyNa40[/youtube]

Two new TV spots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-Cnm-hW5Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfXPs_uPH-w

And images about the creation of the ballroom:
http://ew.com/movies/beauty-and-the-bea ... -ballroom/

[DisneyFan09]

I actually also have a feeling that LeFou will be slightly redeemed. LeFou will probably stand up for himself at the end of the movie. He will be idolizing Gaston throughout the movie but then, at the end, realize that Gaston doesn't really care about him and was just using him. Then he'll probably help Belle of the Beast in some way to defeat Gaston and be present at their wedding or something like that.

Perhaps he's going to have a similar arc which Nathaniel, Queen Narissa's sidekick in Enchanted had?

[bkelly25]

Well, Star Trek Beyond was a huge hit after revealing about Sulu. It was a bigger hit that Zootopia and Captain America Civil War behind so go for it...Oh wait? What?

[JeanGreyForever]

Now apparently Belle is the "first" modern and independent Disney Princess.

Emma Watson in Beauty and the Beast: ''The First Modern Disney Princess''
http://www.eonline.com/news/833117/emma ... y-princess

[PatrickvD]

Poor Moana didn't even hold the title for 6 months

[dollover]

I took her meaning as original Belle, not her Belle, as being the first modern Disney princess, which would be slightly more accurate.

[Sotiris]

It turns out the movie is going to feature the first interracial kiss in a theatrically-released, live-action film under the Disney banner (i.e not under the Touchstone or Miramax label).

The romantic tryst will be between new character, the piano Cadenza (Stanley Tucci), and Madame de Garderobe, the wardrobe (Audra McDonald). It is followed by a second kiss later on, director Bill Condon told BBC Radio 4's Front Row.

Speaking to Front Row's Samira Ahmed, Condon said of the two kisses between Cadenza and Madame de Garderobe: "I didn't give it a second thought, then at the preview, the [Disney] chairman told me that it was the first and second interracial kiss in a Disney movie. That shocked me. I was surprised it hadn't happened before.... and they [Disney] were excited by that."

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39128416

[Sotiris]

Some interesting bits from Bill Condon's newest interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Beauty and the Beast set during the War of the Austrian Succession? We really dodged a bullet, there. God bless Condon for insisting the movie be a traditional, full-blown musical.

Q: So as Disney remakes its animated classics into live-action movies, is there a formula it is following?

Bill Condon: Before I arrived, they were rethinking Beauty and the Beast more radically, more like Snow White and the Huntsman. There was a lot of conversation about the War of the Austrian Succession that didn't interest me. But then after Frozen opened, the studio saw that there was this big international audience for an old-school-musical approach. But initially they said, "We're interested in a musical to a degree, but only half full of songs." My interest was taking that film and doing it in this new medium — live action — as a full-on musical movie. So I backed out for a minute, and they came back and said, "No, no, no, we get it, let's pursue it that way."

On why the film doesn't include any songs from the Broadway show.

There are a few songs that came out of the stage show that I would've liked to have used, but they didn't fit dramatically in terms of the script. There's a big Beast aria in the show that became a hit in its own right called "If I Can't Love Her," but it was written as an Act 1 curtain number. The Beast sings it when he drives Belle away, right before she runs out to the wolves. It's not the right place for the Beast to sing it in a movie. In the movie, there's only really one place, and it's when he finally lets her go and he thinks he's lost her. Now, unfortunately, those lyrics don't work at that dramatic spot. You could change the lyrics to "Now that I've lost her," and that's something that [composer and lyricist] Alan Menken and Tim Rice and I considered, but collectively we thought, "Let's write something that specifically fits this moment." Onstage, you can have a character express his feelings for three minutes in a beautiful, powerful song and that's enough. In a movie, that character has to be somewhere different at the end of the song from where he starts, the story has to keep on. So literally, that became the story of the new song. The Beast is climbing higher and higher in the castle so that he can still keep sight of her and so that he can see her for as long as he possibly can. The song reflects it, the lyric reflects it, and the music sort of ascends as he does. It's an example of something that became clear [as we worked on the film], and there wasn't any kind of corporate pressure to retain something that had been very successful elsewhere.

On why they changed the design of Belle's iconic dress.

Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale, but we very much approached it as set in a particular time and place: France in the 1740s, when the story was written. So it's real in that way. [...] There would have been people who would've preferred that kind of Austrian-curtain yellow dress for Belle [that she wore in the animated movie], but we couldn't do that and stay true to the period.

On choosing a visual style for the enchanted objects.

Q: So how did you go about turning 2D animated objects into 3D CG characters?

Bill Condon: You have to answer so many questions — like how the hell do they get up the stairs? How do they move? We spent six months in R&D with Sarah Greenwood, our brilliant production designer, and the artists at [visual effects house] Framestore in London. What made it possible to start the conversation was the decision to set it in this specific period. You start to look at a candlestick and you see how incredibly ornate it is or a teapot with this unbelievably dense painting on it. You start to see, "There could be eyes there, or a human face on a clock." That was the first principle, that they had to be absolutely period-specific, period-correct. And then secondly, we wanted to make sure that the design of the human features came out of each object's design.

[thedisneyspirit]

First interracial kiss? Then what was Pocahontas', Hunchbacks', and Princess and the Frog's kisses then?

[disneyprincess11]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3lIk9h5R5I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKq2ab3kH_o

SPOILER ALERT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZCuLlDttQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoSLUoOgTbU

[cuau_cg]

First interracial kiss? Then what was Pocahontas', Hunchbacks', and Princess and the Frog's kisses then?

theatrically-released, live-action film under the Disney banner

[Sotiris]

The new song "Evermore" is simply amazing! I love it!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcsaqIsX-yk[/youtube]

[Lady Cluck]

Notice they don't show Emma Watson singing in that cast recording B-roll video. I can't imagine how horrendous she sounded without the studio touchups.

The reactions from the premiere on twitter seem a little mixed, but leaning positive. The songs, production design, and *MAGIC* are being praised, but some are saying it's a pale imitation of the original. It was obvious from the first clips that this film would be a huge hit, but still just riding on the back of the successes people achieved 25 years ago.

Official reviews should be coming soon.

[Disney Duster]

Yea that song is pretty amazing. I don't like all of it but most of it is amazing.

I'm glad this will have a big character (you know, not just some enchanted object that doesn't get a lot of lines) be gay. Disney's first gay major character. Cool!

[Sotiris]

Still just riding on the back of the successes people achieved 25 years ago.

Aren't all remakes doing that by default?

[disneyprincess11]

EDIT: Oh wow, gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous!

Notice they don't show Emma Watson singing in that cast recording B-roll video. I can't imagine how horrendous she sounded without the studio touchups.

Well, to her defense, they only showed Audra, Josh, and Luke singing and Ian...speaking? But, yeah, shouldn't they show the star singing? Emma does sound great in the B-roll.