Beauty and the Beast arrives with a tagline borrowed from its own most famous number — “Be our guest.” Bill Condon directs. Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos wrote the script. The film runs 129 minutes. It is a live-action remake of Disney’s 1991 animated film, which itself came from the French fairy tale. Emma Watson plays Belle and Dan Stevens plays the Beast. It is lavish, faithful and frequently lovely. It is also 129 minutes long.
Trailer, via Disney UK.
The Rose, the Prince and the Enchantress
The story opens at a ball. A selfish prince turns away an enchantress disguised as an old beggar woman. She offers him an enchanted rose in exchange for shelter from a storm. He rebuffs her. She reveals her true form, transforms him into a beast, turns his servants into household objects, and wipes the servants from the memories of their loved ones. The curse breaks only if the prince learns to love someone and earns that love back before the rose sheds its last petal.
That is a lot of machinery to install before Belle ever appears, and Condon’s film takes its time with it. Hattie Morahan plays Agathe, the enchantress, and narrates the prologue. She also lives incognito in Belle’s village as a hag. It is a neat doubling.
Belle, Gaston and a Village of Books
Belle is the bookworm daughter of widowed artist Maurice, played by Kevin Kline. She dreams of adventure and rejects the advances of Gaston, an arrogant hunter and war veteran played by Luke Evans. Gaston wants her as a trophy wife. LeFou, played by Josh Gad, is his flamboyant, illiterate, animal-loving sidekick who bolsters his friend’s ego but often disagrees with his decisions.
Watson is the right Belle on paper. Alan F. Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, made her the first and only choice. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its cast, songs and visual detail.
A Castle Full of Furniture
Maurice gets lost in the forest, escapes a pack of wolves and takes refuge in the Beast’s castle. The Beast imprisons him for stealing a rose from the garden. Belle arrives and offers to take her father’s place. The Beast agrees.
Then come the servants. Lumière the candelabra is Ewan McGregor. Cogsworth the mantel clock is Ian McKellen. Plumette the feather duster is Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Mrs. Potts the teapot is Emma Thompson. Her son Chip the teacup is Nathan Mack. Stanley Tucci is Cadenza, a harpsichord described as “a neurotic maestro.” Audra McDonald is Madame de Garderobe, a wardrobe and a world-renowned opera singer.
Every object has a face, a name and a bit. McGregor and McKellen are clearly having fun. Thompson is warm. The cast runs deep, and the film leans on it hard.
The Wolves, the Book and Paris
Belle finds the rose. The Beast angrily forces her outside. She is ambushed by wolves and he rescues her, getting injured. As she nurses his wounds, they bond. He shows her a gift from the enchantress: a book that transports readers to their desired location. They visit her childhood home in Paris. There they find a plague doctor’s mask, and Belle realizes that as an infant she left with Maurice after her mother died of the bubonic plague — the one thing Maurice could not bring himself to tell her.
The scene gives Belle a grief the 1991 film never touched, and it hands Kline the film’s heaviest moment. It also makes the Beast’s loneliness legible in a way the animated film only gestured at.
Stevens performs the Beast through motion capture. The design is more elegant than the 1991 cartoon. He is less a monster than a large, sad animal. The problem is that the film’s best scene is one the audience already knows is coming, and the film treats it as a reveal rather than a reckoning.
A Budget of $255 Million
The estimated production budget was around $255 million. Filming took place primarily at Shepperton Studios in England from May to August 2015. The film was first announced in April 2014, with Condon attached to direct. Cast members signed on between January and April 2015. Watson was paid $3 million upfront, with an agreement that her final take-home pay could rise as high as $15 million if the film generated gross box office income similar to the $758 million worldwide gross of Maleficent.
That number matters. It tells you what kind of film this is. It is not a risky art project. It is a $255 million machine built to reproduce a beloved animated film for a new generation, and it behaves accordingly.
The Premieres and the Release
Beauty and the Beast had its world premiere at Spencer House in London on February 23, 2017. Its American premiere followed at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on March 2. It was released theatrically in the United States on March 17.
The film grossed $1.27 billion. It became the second-highest-grossing film of 2017 and the tenth-highest-grossing film of all time. Among Disney’s live-action remakes, it is the second-highest-grossing to date. It received nominations for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design at the 90th Academy Awards.
What the Film Gets Right
The visual detail is real. The costumes and the production design earned those Oscar nominations, and they deserve them. The castle interiors are dense with objects and texture. Condon stages the film’s big set pieces with confidence.
The cast is deep. Evans plays Gaston as the film’s antagonist, and Gad’s LeFou is the sidekick who disagrees with his friend and pays for it. That thread is the only place the film takes a thematic risk.
The songs are the songs. The score and lyrics are already among the best in the Disney catalog, and the film does not ruin them. It just does not improve them.
Where It Sags
The film is 129 minutes. The 1991 animated film was shorter, and the gap shows. The film fills its extra time with backstory, extra servants and a Paris detour that works but costs momentum. The result is a movie that is faithful to a fault.
The Beast’s curse has a clock on it — the rose sheds its last petal — and yet the film never feels urgent. Belle and the Beast bond, but the film is so busy servicing every supporting character that the bond has to happen in the margins. By the time the household objects get their moment, the romance has already been decided by the running time.
Watson is a good Belle. She is not a great singer, and the film asks her to be one. That is a casting problem, not a performance problem, and it is the kind of problem that a $255 million budget should have solved.
Our Score
Beauty and the Beast is a competent, handsome, overlong remake that understands its source material and refuses to challenge it. The best thing in it is the Paris sequence, which gives Belle a mother and a grief and a reason to want more than a provincial life. The worst thing is the crowding — a castle full of named servants who each need a scene, and a romance that has to compete with them for air.
It grossed $1.27 billion because it is a known quantity, executed well. It earned two Oscar nominations because it looks great. It did not win because looking great is not the same as being great. The 1991 film is shorter and feels complete. The 2017 film is 129 minutes and feels like it is still explaining itself. That is the trade. More money, more detail, more minutes, and less of the thing that made the original work: a girl, a beast, a rose, and no time to waste.
The Hard Numbers
- Title: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
- Director: Bill Condon
- Writers: Stephen Chbosky, Evan Spiliotopoulos
- Runtime: 129 minutes
- Genres: Family, Fantasy, Romance
- Tagline: “Be our guest.”
- Estimated production budget: around $255 million
- Worldwide gross: $1.27 billion
- Watson upfront pay: $3 million, with a possible rise to $15 million
- Academy Award nominations: Best Production Design, Best Costume Design
- Our score: 6.5 of 10
Release Schedule
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| April 2014 | Film announced; Condon attached to direct | — |
| January 2015 | Emma Watson cast as Belle | — |
| January–April 2015 | Cast members sign on | — |
| May–August 2015 | Principal filming | Shepperton Studios, England |
| February 23, 2017 | World premiere | Spencer House, London |
| March 2, 2017 | American premiere | El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood |
| March 17, 2017 | Theatrical release | United States |
| 2018 | 90th Academy Awards | — |
The schedule tells its own story. Two years from announcement to release, a shoot of four months, and a premiere tour that hit London and Hollywood inside a week. This was a film built on a timetable, and the timetable shows in the finished product.
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