Check Out The First Pics From Disney’s Live-Action ‘Beauty And The Beast’ In Their Creepy Glory
Our first good look at the star-studded cast of next year's highly anticipated remake.
Stockholm Syndrome, it’s a tale as old as time. Girl meets boy. Boy imprisons girl in his castle. Girl has only anthropomorphised household objects to talk to/sing with. Girl falls for boy when he lets her use his personal library. Boy is really a prince trapped in the body of a hideous beast. Love blossoms.
Disney is high on it’s own live-action remake supply, and the next childhood nostalgia victim is Beauty and the Beast, the story of a bright girl falling for a cantankerous beast who keeps her as his prisoner. You know, that classic love story.
The new film, starring the elfin Emma Watson as Belle and Downton Abbey‘s Cousin Matthew (Dan Stevens) as the Beast, is out in March 2017, and Disney’s getting us all geared up with drips and drabs of promotional material.
First, there was the teaser trailer, where we all learned that Scottish men (like Ewan McGregor, who plays the Emcee-style candlestick Lumiere) do the worst French accents. And now there’s this: Entertainment Weekly‘s cover story and multi-page photo spread, giving us our first good look at the star-studded cast of next year’s highly anticipated remake.
I think we can all agree on at least one thing: Emma Watson is the most perfect choice to play Belle in the world ever. I mean, just look at her.
But Cousin Matthew as The Beast? I am unsure. Although, look, fair cop it’s hard to tell under all that CGI.
But the whole thing is honestly a lot more skeevy when it’s real-life people as opposed to cartoon characters. At least Gaston (Luke Evans) looks . . . well, what’s a more decorous way of saying “drool-worthy”?
This is a good time to mention that the Beauty and the Beast stage show includes a whole song that Gaston sings about himself, “Me“, where he sings the line: “We shall be a perfect pair/Rather like my thighs”. This is essential knowledge for everyone to have.
Check out the selection of anthropomorphised household objects/slaves!
Here we have Cogsworth (Sir Ian McKellan), Mrs Potts (Emma Thompson), Lumiere (Ewan McGregor) and “Plumette” (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) — formerly Babette in the cartoon.
THIS is the bit we’re really excited about. Ian McKellan is amazing! Emma Thompson is the perfect Mrs Potts! Gugu Mbatha-Raw is an International Treasure!! (Side note: watch her incredible film co-starring the unfortunately shady Nate Parker, Beyond The Lights, if you want romance and tears and coded references to Rihanna’s music career.)
Look, all jokes aside, this actually looks like it’s going to be pretty grouse. The production design is delicate, opulent and incredible, Watson will smash it out of the park, and the singing will hopefully be not-terrible! Fingers crossed it’s not the same insipid blah-blah mess that Kenneth Bragnagh’s eye-roll-inducing Cinderella was. FINGERS CROSSED.