Disney's Live Action Beauty and the Beast March 2017

They're killing it at the box office - no doubt Disney will pump out live remakes of everything they can, green light them all.....

Disney’s megahit “Beauty and the Beast” is ruling the world this weekend with $207 million — lifting the live-action remake to a worldwide total of $690 million in less than two weeks.

“Beauty and the Beast” led a robust weekend internationally with $119 million, followed by Warner-Legendary’s “Kong: Skull Island” with $93 million — including $72.1 million in China for “Kong” with 13.9 million admissions from approximately 18,000 screens for a 71% share of the total box office and the second-biggest international opening in China this year after “Resident Evil” grossed a stunning $91 million.

 

"BatB" is clearly blowing away expectations. It's already at $300 million-plus just for the US in 10 days!

Not sure how much it'll impact Disney's future plans, though, as it seems like they already were trying to remake everything they can!

These live-action remakes were already doing well - "Cinderella" and "Jungle Book" made good money - so I think "BatB" just keeps the plan in place...

 

We went to see it this afternoon. I thought it was very well done and the singing and production numbers were very good. But then I've always loved a good musical. The couple of new songs were pretty good too, especially the solo song by the Beast.

Was I the only one who thought that the Beast was far more attractive than the prince turned out to be?

 

If I, as a male poster, comment on the Beast's attractiveness, I fear this thread may be banned in Kuwait, and/or parts of Alabama. But yes, I see your point. Maybe it's because I like animals more than people in most cases.

 

They only made -- what? -- 50 animated features? This can't go on forever. I think what Bob Eiger is basically saying is, "hey, as long as we don't run out of remakes while I'm CEO for the next three years, it's not my problem."

I have many questions about the plot of Beauty and the Beast, and this covers most of them...

12 Questions Disney Forgot To Answer About "Beauty And The Beast"

 

Apparently there's 19 more live-action remakes planned:

 

I've never seen the animated film. My question from the live action film - why do these people living in France, many with French names, almost universally have British accents (accept Kevin Kline, who maybe is TRYING to have a British accent)? Is this in keeping with the Universal Pictures British Accents in Horror Movies Set in Europe Rule?

 

From what I read, 17. Not 19.

 

Having suffered through more than one film in which English speakers fail at reproducing the French accent, I'm content to have "any movie in the English language set in Europe" use the British accent instead!

 

I saw this yesterday. My thoughts:

1. This remake is, for the most part, superfluous. It really is a "re-make." Apart from two new songs, it's virtually identical to the original. If course it'll make a billion dollars though, so there's that.

2. I like two of the characters better in the new version: Dan Stevens as The Beast, mainly for the transformation scene (he looks similar to the Prince in the animated feature, but the animated Prince is so perfect he looks ridiculous); and Kevin Kline as Maurice (a 100% improvement on the blundering idiot of the animated feature).

3. I didn't dislike her performance, but I rather think Emma Watson got cast because of her box office drawing power and not her singing talent. It'd be nice if these singing-heavy roles were given to actors more trained in singing. Also, Emma's presence in the village appeared neither peculiar nor particularly beautiful. The animated Belle communicates both the sense of being "apart" from the general populace and the sense of traffic-stopping beauty that obviously draws the notice of someone like Gaston. I found myself wondering why someone like Gaston would be so obsessed with Emma Watson's mousy Belle. And it's not like I think Watson is unattractive, she just didn't seem entirely right for the role.

4. The sound mix seemed poor to me, although it could have been the theater. I've never had a hard time understanding all the lines in the "Be Our Guest" song when watching the animated movie. In this version it was a confused smear of syllables.

5. Some of the CGI was just laughingly bad. The scene where the castle transformed from the gargoyle-encrusted nightmare keep to a Disney fairy-tale castle was very chintzy. On the other hand, The Beast looked great!

6. The line where Belle asks the newly restored Prince to "grow a beard" made me laugh out loud.

 

Sorry, give me Jean Cocteau's beautiful, elegant and hypnotic La Belle et la Bete any day of the week. And no one in that film has a British accent, and it's all live action. No singing, either, as it's not a musical.

 

Yeah some of the reports are old, and apparently pre-date Pete's Dragon and Beauty and the Beast? I think that's the issue with the numbers there.

 

Oh yeah. I forgot about Pete's Dragon. Saw that last year with my family on vacation and it was wicked good. I'm surprised that it wasn't a musical like the original one was and instead it was more like a drama.

 

That alone increases my chances of watching it.

Maleficent was quite nice, actually.

 

I'm all for being as accurate as possible, but if it's 17 rather than 19 live-action remakes, doesn't the same problem (for those that find the remakes problematic) remain?

 

Watching this now at it's really very good. It doesn't feel like the cartoon to me, which I could barely sit through. The story has been expanded and it's a first class production. I'm managing to forget my dislike for the cartoon and love this live action version. I like how they toned everything down from the cartoon --- like the talking candle and clock being very realistic objects. Emma Watson is okay. I think she's cute in a boyish way, but she isn't exactly the beauty a whole town would swoon over. Kevin Kline is very good in even though I barely recognized him. I don't really dig the beast makeup, though. It's a little too "CATS" for my taste. But otherwise, a great well-done musical.

 

I thought it was well done.

 

My family all saw this for mothers day. We all loved it. Pretty hard to please a man 52, woman 51, woman 19, and boy 17.

 

I skipped it theatrically - I like the 1991 animated version but just didn't see the point to the remake. It looked like such a literal "Gus Van Sant Does 'Psycho'" remake that I couldn't muster the energy to bother.

Disney's sending me a review Blu-ray, though, so I'll give that a look. I hope I like it more than I expect!

 

We all liked it more than we thought we would.

 

Liked it more than I thought I would. Not as good as the animated movie but at least the new one expands the story a bit. The only downside is the heavy use of autotune. It sounds awful.

 

The Cinema Sins episode on this movie is outstanding (and spot-on as always).



It has some great production design and sets, but beyond that it's just so pointless. It just makes me want to watch the animated version again.