Of the Disney live-action remakes, this is one of the better ones. Of the category of "remakes that follow the original to a fault" I'd say it's probably the best of the batch. The original Beauty and the Beast is a concise 90 minutes that goes by super easy and gives you everything you need.
Yes there's a lot of little details and character elements left out, but as a fairy tale, it works. And it was one of the first Disney movies to show a truly strong female lead and a depth to its romance (no, I don't buy into that Stockholm theory). Belle was headstrong, the Beast was stubborn, and they worked through it into a unique love. Did we need the enchantress to return at the end along with the full plothole filling details about her curse? Did we need a tragic backstory for both Belle and Beast that shows how they became the people they are? Not really, we get enough of them in the present to draw our own conclusions.
The thing is though, each time it would go into a bit adding something, I would be reluctant at first but by the end I'd think "y'know what, that's actually fine, that works." Is it all necessary? Not at all, but if you're going to expand on this story into something of an epic musical, the stuff they expand on it with is good stuff. I'll be honest, getting more one-on-one moments between Belle and Beast was really effective, and the moments were often touching. The original showed the development fine, but this shows a little more, and I like what it shows. There's also new songs, and unlike something like say live-action Aladdin, the songs fit the tone of the rest of the film. There's smaller pieces where there need to be, but there's also the big showstoppers that while not the animation, are still stellar in their own right.
They know how to use the live action space in the unique way it presents. The biggest thing I like about the movie though is that the environments just looks great. The set design of the castle, the town, this is a place I want to visit.
Much of it is CGI obviously, but there's a good amount of practical effects that look amazing. Ewan McGregor is having a ton of fun as Lumiere, but everyone else feels like they're just sort of there. There's not a lot of personality even though there's more time given to them. The enchanted inhabitants are designed to look much more like their real life counterparts, but this takes away the personality they had in the animation.
Ewan McGregor has a voice and personality that works through that sometimes, but most of them don't. As for the townsfolk, man I love Kevin Kline but he's just not that interesting as Belle's dad. He gets some solid laughs, but at the end of the day it's just a Josh Gad performance, and I don't love some of the changes they make to his character in terms of his Gaston loyalty. Overall, it's not the original animation, but it's still a solid update. I don't like all these Disney reboots, but if they keep doing them with this level of effort, there's something to it. Based on the 1991 film – the first animated feature ever nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture – Beauty and the Beast opened on Broadway in April 1994 and garnered nine Tony nominations and one win.
It remains to this day – 26 years after it opened – among the top 10 longest running shows in Broadway history. The live-action retelling of the animated classic quickly became the highest grossing live action film musical of all time in 2017, a record only beaten by The Lion King live-action release in 2019. In June 2014, Walt Disney Pictures announced that a live-action film adaptation of the original film was in the works, with Bill Condon directing and Evan Spiliotopoulos writing the script. Condon originally planned on not only drawing inspiration from the original film, but also to include most, if not all, of the Menken/Rice songs from the Broadway musical, with the intention of making the film as a "straight-forward, live-action, large-budget movie musical".
In September 2014, it was announced that Stephen Chbosky would re-write the script. In January 2015, Emma Watson announced on her Facebook page that she would portray Belle in the new live action remake film. In March 2015, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Emma Thompson, Josh Gad, Audra McDonald, and Kevin Kline joined the film as the Beast, Gaston, Mrs. Potts, Lefou, Garderobe, and Maurice, respectively. The following month, Ian McKellen, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw joined the cast, as Cogsworth, Lumière, Cadenza, and Plumette, respectively. Composer Alan Menken returned to score the film's music, with new material written by Menken and Tim Rice. In June 2015, Menken said the film would not include the songs that were written for the Broadway musical.
Beauty and the Beast premiered as an unfinished film at the New York Film Festival on September 29, 1991, followed by its theatrical release as a completed film at the El Capitan Theatre on November 13. The film grossed $331 million at the box office worldwide on a $25 million budget and received widespread critical acclaim for its romantic narrative, animation , characters and musical numbers. Beauty and the Beast won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, the first animated film to ever win that category.
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It also became the first animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards, where it won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for its title song and received additional nominations for Best Original Song and Best Sound. In April 1994, Beauty and the Beast became Disney's first animated film to be adapted into a Broadway musical, which ran until 2007. The 30th Disney animated feature film and the third released during the Disney Renaissance period, it is based on the 1756 French fairy tale of the same name by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont , and ideas from the 1946 French film of the same name directed by Jean Cocteau. Beauty and the Beast focuses on the relationship between the Beast , a prince who is magically transformed into a monster and his servants into household objects as punishment for his arrogance, and Belle (voice of Paige O'Hara), a young woman whom he imprisons in his castle. To break the curse, Beast must learn to love Belle and earn her love in return before the last petal falls from an enchanted rose or else the Beast will remain a monster forever. The film also features the voices of Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, and Angela Lansbury.
Ashman and Menken wrote the Beauty song score during the pre-production process in Fishkill, the opening operetta-styled "Belle" being their first composition for the film. The Beauty songs were mostly recorded live with the orchestra and the voice cast performing simultaneously rather than overdubbed separately, in order to give the songs a cast album-like "energy" the filmmakers and songwriters desired. Upon seeing the initial storyboard reels in 1989, Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg was dissatisfied with Purdum's idea and ordered that the film be scrapped and started over from scratch.
The studio had approached John Musker and Ron Clements to direct the film, but they turned down the offer, saying they were "tired" after just having finished directing Disney's recent success The Little Mermaid. Katzenberg then hired first-time feature directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale. Wise and Trousdale had previously directed the animated sections of Cranium Command, a short film for a Disney EPCOT theme park attraction. In addition, wanting another musical film, Katzenberg asked songwriters Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who had written the song score for The Little Mermaid, to turn Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway-style musical film in the same vein as Mermaid. Ashman, who at the time had learned he was dying of complications from AIDS, had been working with Disney on a pet project of his, Aladdin, and only reluctantly agreed to join the struggling production team.
To accommodate Ashman's failing health, pre-production of Beauty and the Beast was moved from London to the Residence Inn in Fishkill, New York, close to Ashman's New York City home. Here, Ashman and Menken joined Wise, Trousdale, Hahn, and Woolverton in retooling the film's script. Since the original story had only two major characters, the filmmakers enhanced them, added new characters in the form of enchanted household items who "add warmth and comedy to a gloomy story" and guide the audience through the film, and added a "real villain" in the form of Gaston. Walt Disney first attempted to adapt Beauty and the Beast into an animated film during the 1930s and 1950s, but was unsuccessful.
Following the success of The Little Mermaid , Walt Disney Pictures decided to adapt the fairy tale, which Richard Purdum originally conceived as a non-musical. Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg eventually dismissed Purdum's idea and ordered that the film be a musical similar to The Little Mermaid instead. The film was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise in their directorial debut, with a screenplay by Linda Woolverton story first credited to Roger Allers. Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken wrote the film's songs. Ashman, who additionally served as the film's executive producer, died of AIDS-related complications six months before the film's release, and the film is thus dedicated to his memory. 129 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget$160–255 millionBox office$1.264 billionBeauty and the Beast is a 2017 American movie musical romantic fantasy film directed by Bill Condon from a screenplay by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos.
Co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Mandeville Films, the film is a live-action remake of Disney's 1991 animated film of the same name, itself an adaptation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's 1756 version of the fairy tale. It features an ensemble and choir cast including Emma Watson and Dan Stevens as the eponymous characters, with Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ian McKellen, and Emma Thompson in supporting roles. Singing teapots and candlesticks, an evil spell, and an unlikely love story are all part of the magic of Disney'sBeauty and the Beast, an international sensation that has played to more than 35 million people in 13 countries.
Based on the Academy Award–winning animated feature, the stage production includes all of the original songs from the movie by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, plus additional gems by Menken and Tim Rice. The whole family will be enchanted by this gorgeous production, featuring stunning costumes and sets, spectacular dance numbers, and, of course, a fairy-tale ending. The "tale as old as time" gets updated as Disney's Beauty and the Beast is remade as a visually spectacular live-action musical.
This new version more or less follows the animated one beat for beat, scenes for scene, though it does expand the story a bit; providing a backstory about Belle losing her mother and more scenes of Belle and Beast forming a friendship. However, Disney unfortunately takes a PC brush to the fairytale with conspicuous placements of minorities , turning LeFou into a gay character, and making Belle more proactive and independent. Still, the all-star cast featuring Emma Watson, Luke Evans, Ian McKellen, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Kline, and Emma Thompson delivers wonderful performances. And the CGI work and choreography are extraordinary, making for some extravagant and lavish musical numbers. It has its problems and doesn't live up to the animated classic, but Beauty and the Beast is incredibly entertaining and fun.
Several critics regarded the film as inferior to its 1991 animated predecessor. David Sims of The Atlantic wrote that the 2017 film "feels particularly egregious, in part, because it's so slavishly devoted to the original; every time it falls short of its predecessor , it's hard not to notice". Outside the US and Canada, the film began playing on Thursday, March 16, 2017. Through Sunday, March 19, it had a total international opening of $182.3 million from 55 markets, 44 of which were major territories, far exceeding initial estimations of $100 million and opened at No. 1 in virtually all markets except Vietnam, Turkey, and India. Its launch is the second-biggest for the month of March, behind Batman v Superman ($256.5 million).
In IMAX, it recorded the biggest debut for a PG-rated title with $8.5 million from 649 screens, the second-biggest for a PG title behind The Jungle Book. In its second weekend, it fell just by 35% earning another $120.6 million and maintaining its first position hold. It topped the international box office for three consecutive weekends before finally being dethroned by Ghost in the Shell and The Boss Baby in its fourth weekend. Despite the fall, the film helped Disney push past the $1 billion threshold internationally for the first time in 2017.
To say that people are excited for the live-action remake of Disney's Beauty and the Beast is an understatement. The teaser trailer for the film amassed nearly 92 million views in its first 24 hours, and that was with few details about what the characters in the beloved tale would actually look like. (It was a clever frame-for-frame remake of the animated movie's teaser, however!) But while we got a glimpse of Emma Watson as Belle, you'll still need to meet the other actors bringing the enchanted castle to life.
One Tumblr user already juxtaposed images of the actors with GIFs from the original movie, so let your imagination run wild as to how exactly Disney will bring these characters to life. Most critics regard the 1991 animated film as superior to the 2017 live-action remake. During the course of production, many changes were made to the structure of the film, necessitating the replacement and re-purposing of songs. After screening a mostly animated version of the "Be Our Guest" sequence, story artist Bruce Woodside suggested that the objects should be singing the song to Belle rather than her father.
Wise and Trousdale agreed, and the sequence and song were retooled to replace Maurice with Belle. The film's title song went through a noted bit of uncertainty during production. Originally conceived as a rock-oriented song, it was changed to a slow, romantic ballad.
Howard Ashman and Alan Menken asked Angela Lansbury to perform the song, but she did not think her voice was suited for the melody. When she voiced her doubts, Menken and Ashman asked her for at least one take and told her to perform the song as she saw fit. Lansbury reportedly reduced everyone in the studio to tears with her rendition, nailing the song in the one take asked of her. "Human Again" was dropped from the film before animation began, as its lyrics caused story problems about the timeline over which the story takes place.
"Something There," in which Belle and Beast sing of their growing fondness for each other, was composed late in production and inserted into the script in place of "Human Again." Decades later, during the production of Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1987, the Disney studio resurrected Beauty and the Beast as a project for the satellite animation studio it had set up in London, England to work on Roger Rabbit. Richard Williams, who had directed the animated portions of Roger Rabbit, was approached to direct but declined in favor of continuing work on his long-gestating project The Thief and the Cobbler. In his place, Williams recommended his colleague, English animation director Richard Purdum, and work began under producer Don Hahn on a non-musical version of Beauty and the Beast set in 19th-century France. At the behest of Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Beauty and the Beast became the first Disney animated film to use a screenwriter. This was an unusual move for an animated film, which is traditionally developed on storyboards rather than in a scripted form.
Linda Woolverton wrote the original draft of the story before storyboarding began, and worked with the story team to retool and develop the film. Menken returned to score the film's music, which features songs from the original film by him and Ashman, plus new material written by Menken and Rice. Menken said the film would not include songs that were written for the Broadway musical and, instead, created four new songs. However, an instrumental version of the song "Home", which was written for the musical, is used during the scene where Belle first enters her room in the castle.
When released in 1991, Beauty and the Beast marked a turning point for Walt Disney Pictures by appealing to millions of fans with its Academy Award-winning musical score by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken. In Bill Condon's opinion, that original score was the key reason he agreed to direct a live-action version of the film. Set to open at Bristol Hippodrome on 25 August, Beauty and the Beast has music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, and is based on the award-winning animated film of the same name.
The piece follows a young woman who stumbles upon a petulant prince cursed to resemble a beast unless he can find true love. A Disney Digital 3D version of the film, the second of a traditionally animated film, was originally scheduled to be released in US theatres on February 12, 2010, but the project was postponed. On August 25, 2011, Disney announced that the 3D version of the film would make its American debut at Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre from September 2–15, 2011. After the successful 3D re-release of The Lion King, Disney announced a wide 3D re-release of Beauty and the Beast in North America beginning January 13, 2012. These ideas were somewhat similar to elements of the 1946 French film version of Beauty and the Beast, which introduced the character of Avenant, an oafish suitor somewhat similar to Gaston, as well as inanimate objects coming to life in the Beast's castle. The animated objects were, however, given distinct personalities in the Disney version.
By early 1990, Katzenberg had approved the revised script, and storyboarding began again. The production flew story artists back and forth between California and New York for storyboard approvals from Ashman, though the team was not told the reason why. Many have speculated if Emma Watson got a share of her own Auto-Tune as Belle in Beauty & the Beast, and it certainly sounds like it. Paige O'Hara had it all when she was hired in 1987 for the original animated movie, as she was a professional musical theatre actress. She helped bring Belle to life with her natural charm and heart in her voice, that was absent from the new adaptation.
Maybe Disney paid attention to the criticism of Russell Crowe's rock vocals being out of place in the otherwise musically talented cast of Les misérables and thought they could fix the possible issue digitally. The structure and tone of the story and score – as conceived for the 1991 film by its executive producer and lyricist Howard Ashman with a continued evolution for the Broadway adaptation three years later – made Disney history. Only once before – in Menken and Ashman's previous film musical The Little Mermaid – had a Disney film been structured like a stage musical where the songs are integral to plot and characterisation rather than only ornamental or digressions. This Menken/Ashman innovation is credited with the 1990's Disney animation renaissance that went on to create such film classics as Aladdin, The Lion King and Hunchback of Notre Dame and helped re-introduce the book musical form to popular culture. While she certainly made the most of her supporting role in the first season, it would be a sin not to cast Ashlyn as the lead this time around. Her stunning rendition of the emotional ballad "Wondering" in "High School Musical" achieved the impressive feat of rounding out Miss Darbus' fan-favorite but flat character.
Plus, an added mother-daughter song from her and Nini would be a welcome reprise to their beautiful Season 1 duet. Singing teapots and candlesticks, an evil spell and an unlikely love story come together in Beauty and the Beast, which is based on the Oscar-winning animated feature and includes all of the movie's original songs by Menken and Ashman, plus additional gems by Menken and Rice. We heard the gruff tones of Sir Ian McKellen in the teaser trailer for Beauty and the Beast, and while he wasn't bellowing "You shall not pass," there was no doubt that it was the two-time Oscar nominee lending his voice to the angry clock, Cogsworth.
