Beauty and the Beast is a 2017 American musical romantic fantasy film and a live-action adaptation of Disney Animation's 1991 film, itself based on the French fairy tale. Directed by Bill Condon and written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos, the film stars Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast, with Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ian McKellen, and Emma Thompson in supporting roles.
The film was first announced in April 2014, with Condon attached to direct. The cast members signed on between January and April 2015, and filming took place primarily at Shepperton Studios in England from May to August of that year. The estimated production budget was around $255million.
Beauty and the Beast had its world premiere at Spencer House in London on February 23, 2017, followed by its American premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on March 2. It was released theatrically in the United States on March 17. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its cast, songs, and visual detail. It grossed $1.27billion, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 2017 and the tenth-highest-grossing film of all time. Amongst Disney's live-action adaptation remakes, it is the second-highest-grossing film to date. The film received several accolades, including nominations for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design at the 90th Academy Awards.
Plot
A selfish and unkind prince hosting a ball is visited in his castle by an enchantress disguised as an old beggar woman, who offers him an enchanted rose in exchange for shelter from a storm. When he rebuffs her, she reveals her true form and transforms him into a beast and his servants into household objects before erasing them from the memories of their loved ones. For the curse to be broken, the prince must learn to love someone and have that person love him back before the rose sheds its last petal, or else he will remain a beast forever.
Several years later in a nearby village, Belle, the bookworm daughter of widowed artist Maurice, dreams of adventure while constantly rejecting advances from Gaston, an arrogant hunter and war veteran. One day, Maurice becomes lost in the forest and — after escaping a pack of wolves — seeks refuge in the Beast's castle. The Beast imprisons him after he catches him stealing a rose from the garden for Belle. Belle travels to the castle and offers to take her father's place as prisoner; the Beast agrees.
Belle meets the castle's servants, including candelabra Lumière, mantel clock Cogsworth, feather-duster Plumette, teapot Mrs. Potts, and her son Chip, a teacup. When she finds the rose, the Beast angrily forces her to flee outside. Belle is ambushed by wolves and the Beast rescues her, getting injured in the process. As she nurses his wounds, they bond. He shows her a gift from the enchantress, a book that transports readers to their desired location. She and the Beast visit her childhood home in Paris, where they discover a plague doctor's mask and Belle realizes that when she was an infant, she forcibly departed with Maurice after her mother's death from the bubonic plague, the one thing Maurice could not bring himself to reveal.
Meanwhile, Maurice fails to convince the other villagers of the Beast. Gaston agrees to help, seeing rescuing Belle as the perfect opportunity to win her hand in marriage. When Maurice discovers his ulterior motive, Gaston abandons him to be devoured by wolves. Maurice is rescued by the town hermit Agathe, but Gaston convinces the village to send Maurice to an insane asylum. Belle discovers Maurice's predicament via a magic mirror, another gift from the enchantress. The Beast releases her to save him. Arriving back in town, she reveals the Beast via the mirror, shocking the townsfolk and proving her father's sanity. Realizing Belle has fallen for the Beast, Gaston jealously has her thrown into the asylum carriage with Maurice, then rallies the villagers to slay the Beast. Belle tells Maurice about her mother's death, and the two escape.
Gaston attacks the depressed Beast, who regains his spirit upon seeing Belle return. He spares Gaston's life, but Gaston shoots the Beast twice from an unstable bridge; its collapse sends Gaston falling to his death. The Beast dies just as the last petal falls, and the servants become inanimate. As Belle tearfully professes her love to him, Agathe reveals herself as the enchantress and undoes the curse, restoring the Beast and his servants to their human forms along with the villagers' memories, as well as restoring the castle to its true appearance. Belle and the prince host a ball for the kingdom.
Cast
Emma Watson as Belle, a bright and spirited bibliophile who rejects the monotony of provincial life and yearns for life beyond the confines of her village. Daisy Duczmal as Baby Belle. Dan Stevens as the Beast, a spoiled and arrogant prince who has been transformed into a monstrous, talking beast and forced to earn back his humanity by learning to truly love and be loved in return. Stevens portrays the character through motion-capture. Adam Mitchell as Young Prince. Luke Evans as Gaston, a narcissistic and arrogant hunter and veteran of the French Royal Army who seeks to have Belle as his trophy wife. Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle's protective widowed father who works as a music box maker and an artist. Jolyon Coy as Young Maurice. Josh Gad as LeFou, Gaston's flamboyant, illiterate, animal-loving, and long-suffering sidekick who bolsters his friend's ego but often disagrees with his decisions. Ewan McGregor as Lumière, the Beast's charismatic maître d' who has been transformed into a candelabra. Stanley Tucci as Cadenza, a neurotic composer (who is described as "a neurotic maestro") and Madame de Garderobe's husband who has been transformed into a harpsichord. Audra McDonald as Madame de Garderobe, a world-renowned opera singer and Cadenza's wife who has been transformed into a wardrobe. Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, a castle maid and Lumière's lover who has been transformed into a feather duster. Hattie Morahan as Agathe, an enchantress responsible for cursing the Prince, and who lives incognito in Belle's village as a "hag". Morahan also narrates the prologue. Rita Davies as Old Woman, the enchantress's beggar disguise. The film was released posthumously after Davies's death. Nathan Mack as Chip, Mrs Potts's plucky son who has been transformed into a teacup. Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the Beast's strict but loyal butler and the head of the household staff who has been transformed into a mantel clock. Emma Thompson as Mrs Potts, the castle's motherly head housekeeper who has been transformed into a teapot.
The film also features Thomas Padden as Chapeau, the prince's valet who has been transformed into a coat rack, and Clive Rowe as Cuisinier, the castle's head chef who has been transformed into a stove. Additionally, Sophie Reid, Rafaëlle Cohen, and Carla Nella appear as the Village Lasses, a trio of women who fawn over Gaston and are jealous of Belle. Jimmy Johnston, Dean Street, and Alexis Loizon appear as Tom, Dick, and Stanley, a trio of men who are friends with Gaston and LeFou and serve as the former's henchmen. Adrian Schiller appears as Monsieur D'Arque, the sly warden of the local asylum who is bribed by Gaston to have Maurice institutionalized. Gerard Horan appears as Monsieur Jean Potts, Mrs Potts's husband and Chip's father. Haydn Gwynne appears as Clothilde, a fishmonger and Cogsworth's wife. Michael Jibson appears as the Tavern Keeper, the owner and keeper of Villeneuve's local tavern. Ray Fearon appears as Père Robert, Villeneuve's local chaplain who encourages Belle to borrow the books in the chapel's meager library. Zoë Rainey appears as Belle's mother, Maurice's late wife who contracted the plague and died when Belle was an infant. Gizmo appears as Frou-Frou, Maestro Cadenza's and Madame de Garderobe's pet Yorkshire Terrier who has been transformed into a footstool. Tom Turner appears as the King, the prince's father who, following his wife's death, raised his son to be just as arrogant and selfish as he was. Harriet Jones appears as the Queen, the Prince's mother who died of an illness when he was a child. Dale Branston appears as Villeneuve's resident baker. Chris Andrew Mellon appears as Nasty Headmaster, the unnamed headmaster of an all-boys school in Villeneuve that disapproves of Belle teaching a young girl how to read. Vivian Parry appears as the Village Lasses' mother, an unnamed seamstress. Stephen Merchant was set to appear as Monsieur Toilette, a servant who was turned into a toilet, but his scenes were wiped from the theatrical release of the film.
Production Development Previously, Disney had begun work on a film adaptation of the 1994 Broadway musical. However, in a 2011 interview, composer Alan Menken stated the planned film version of the Beauty and the Beast stage musical "was canned".
By April 2014, Walt Disney Pictures had already begun developing a new live-action version of Beauty and the Beast after making other live-action fantasy films such as Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, Cinderella, and The Jungle Book. Two months later, Bill Condon signed on to direct the film from a script by Evan Spiliotopoulos. Later in September of that same year, Stephen Chbosky (who directed Emma Watson in The Perks of Being a Wallflower) was hired to re-write the script.
Before Condon was hired to direct the film, Disney approached him with a proposal to remake the film in a more radical way as Universal Studios had remade Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). Condon later explained that "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. Walt Disney Pictures President of Production Sean Bailey credited Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan F. Horn with the decision to make the film as a musical: "We worked on this for five or six years, and for 18 months to two years, Beauty was a serious dramatic project, and the scripts were written to reflect that. It wasn't a musical at that time. But we just couldn't get it to click and it was Alan Horn who championed the idea of owning the Disney of it all. We realized there was a competitive advantage in the songs. What is wrong with making adults feel like kids again?" The film's ending originally featured Gaston being cursed by the Enchantress, though the idea was scrapped.
Casting