Beauty and the Beast Trivia: 35 fun facts about the live action movie!

Beauty and the Beast is an upcoming American romantic fantasy musical film directed by Bill Condon. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about it!

1.The film is produced by David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman, and written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos.

2. The plot: Belle is a young woman who is taken prisoner by a Beast in his castle. Despite her fears, she befriends the castle’s enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beast’s exterior to recognize the true heart and soul of the human Prince within, just as a hunter named Gaston is on the loose to take Belle for himself and hunt down the Beast at any cost.

3. Previously in 2009, Disney began progress on a film adaptation of the 1994 Broadway musical.

4. However, in a 2011 interview, composer Alan Menken stated the planned film version of the Beauty and the Beast stage musical “was canned.”

5. In April 2014, it was reported that Walt Disney Pictures began developing a new live-action version and remake of Beauty and the Beast after making other live-action fantasy films such as Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, Cinderella, and The Jungle Book.

6. On June 4, 2014, Bill Condon signed on to direct the film, which Evan Spiliotopoulos would write.

7. Condon originally planned on not only drawing inspiration from the original film, but he also planned to include most, if not all, of the Menken/Ashman songs from the Broadway musical, with the intention of making the film as a “straight-forward, live-action, large-budget movie musical”.

8. In September 2014, it was announced that Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) would re-write the script.

9. Menken will return to score the film’s music, which will feature songs from the original film by him and Howard Ashman, plus new material written by Menken and Tim Rice.[

10. Menken said the film will not include songs that were written for the Broadway musical

11. In January 26, 2015, Emma Watson announced that she would be starring as Belle, the female lead.

12. On March 4, 2015, Luke Evans and Dan Stevens were revealed to be in talks to play Gaston and the Beast respectively, and Watson confirmed their casting the following day through tweets.

13. Susan Egan, who originated the role of Belle on Broadway, commented on the casting of Watson as “perfect”.

14. Paige O’Hara, who voiced Belle in the original animated film and its sequels, offered to help Watson with her singing lessons.

15. Principal photography on the film began at Shepperton Studios in London on May 18, 2015.

16. Filming with the principal actors concluded on August 21.

17. Six days later, co-producer Jack Morrissey confirmed that the film had officially wrapped production.

18. On March 16, 2015, Disney announced the film would be released in 3D on March 17, 2017.

19. The first official presentation of the film took place at Disney’s three-day D23 Expo in August 2015

20.  In its first 24 hours, the trailer reached 91.8 million views, which topped the number of views seen in that amount of time in history, including for the teasers for other films distributed by Disney such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

21. The first official teaser poster was released on July 7, 2016.

22. Sir Ian McKellen originally turned down the role of Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast.

23. According to Ewan McGregor, the hardest part about playing Lumiere was getting the character’s French accent right, although his wife of 20 years is in fact French. He said his voice ending up sounding Spanish instead of French.

24. Ryan Gosling was offered the role of the Beast, but turned it down to appear in La La Land (2016) instead. Coincidentally, Emma Watson turned down the lead female role in ‘La La Land’ due to scheduling conflicts with this movie.

25. Emma Watson released to fans that she would be playing the role of Belle before it even went on record. A big fan of Beauty and The Beast (1991) since childhood, she told her fans that her “6 year old self is on the ceiling – heart bursting”.

26. Emma Watson developed a close relationship with screenwriter Stephen Chbosky while working on The perks of being a wallflower(2012). She brought him on board the film to work on the script.

27. The movie is partly being filmed on land adjoining the classic English golf course at Berkhamsted Golf Club, also a prior location for the “Harry Potter” films and several others.

28. Emma Watson (Belle) and Emma Thompson (Mrs. Potts) previously worked together in the “Harry Potter” film series. Watson was Hermione Granger, and Thompson was Professor Trelawney.

29. Emma Watson was considered to play the title role in Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella (2015).

30. Ian McKellen who stars in the film with Emma Watson, was originally considered to star with her in the Harry Potter series as Albus Dumbledore.

31. Ewan McGregor (Lumiere) and Ian McKellen (Cogsworth) come from big-budget fantasy franchises which had Christopher Lee as an antagonist: McGregor fought Dooku (Lee) in “Star Wars”, and McKellen fought Saruman (Lee) in “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy”.

32. Emma Roberts was considered for the role of Belle.

33. Both Hermione Granger and Belle who were portrayed by Emma Watson are very similar characters as they both love to read, have vast knowledge, both are female protagonists and both are noble.

34. This is the second live action “Beauty and the Beast” movie to be released in 3 years. The first one is in French, and it is called by its French name “Belle et la Bête”.

35. Robert Pattinson was briefly considered for the role of the Beast.