Disney‘s latest live action retelling is probably the last one you’d expect! And maybe for good reason…
According to sources spilling to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+ is making a prequel to the 2017 hit movie version of Beauty And The Beast, and it’s all about Gaston and LeFou!
Per the report, Josh Gad and Luke Evans, who were truly charming live action versions of the classic cartoon characters, will both be reprising their roles — marking the streaming service’s first effort to spin off native Disney properties the same way they’re doing with the Marvel Studios ones. While no other stars from the movie are signed on, it’s even possible someone else could make a surprise appearance!
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So what will a TV show even look like? According to insiders, the show will be a six-episode miniseries event (obviously it can’t go too long without ignoring the events of the movie), which will ALSO be a full-on musical the whole time with composer Alan Menken in talks to craft new songs!
OK, that’s amazing…
The series is being co-created by Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who acted as showrunners on another fairy tale TV show, ABC‘s long-running Once Upon A Time. Heck, they even tackled Beauty and the Beast already… This time, however, the duo will be joined by Josh Gad, who will serve as the third showrunner, writer, and exec producer besides starring.
According to THR‘s sources, the prequel idea came after the trio worked for months on a Disney+ Muppets show called Muppets Live Another Day, which has since been scrapped; out of that dead end came a working relationship and an exciting new idea.
But… can it work?
Don’t get us wrong, we are SO down to watch the ribald homoerotic near-flirtations of a hunky soldier and his sycophantic flunky. But we have two big issues holding back our excitement…
First, there’s the prequel problem. How are we supposed to get attached to these two and their will they, won’t they story when we know Gaston eventually transforms from an egomaniacal brutish himbo to a homicidal psychopath who [Spoiler Alert we guess?] gets himself killed by the end of the movie?
Second is something more specific to Disney right now. Yeah. It’s the gay thing.
Back when the movie was about to come out, much ado was made of the “gay moment” — which turned out to be nothing more than a furtive glance between two male characters who didn’t even know one another. That has basically been Disney’s go-to move with its LGBT audiences lately, claiming far too much victory from blink-and-you’ll-miss-it representation. Like in Star Wars how everyone shipped Finn and Poe — but instead two nameless background characters turned out to be lesbians (if you even noticed them kiss while rolling your eyes), and that was supposed to be equality.
But those are movies. When the whole dynamic of the characters is LeFou’s unspoken love of Gaston, how can you have a whole show about them and IGNORE any LGBT elements?
That prospect gets especially dicey when you consider how much worse things are for gays on Disney+.
In its constant push to remain “family friendly” the network ejected the YA adaptation Love Victor to Hulu — and apparently had a similar issue with the Lizzie McGuire reboot which still hasn’t been resolved.
We just don’t see the point of spending a few more hours with Gaston and LeFou if they’re not going to get to be their true selves. But we hope to be proven wrong!
What do YOU think, Disneyphiles??
[Image via Disney/YouTube.]
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