In 2013, when Frozen had swept the world in its animated feel-good frenzy, the Walt Disney Company, knew they had a good thing going. “[The studio] realised there was a big new audience for these kinds of musical fantasy movies,” remembers director Bill Condon referring to his experience with getting his remake of Beauty and the Beast , which releases this Friday.
“We thank Frozen for it,” he says. The ‘it’ here is convincing Disney to go a step further than the mere live action route. “They weren’t sure they were going to make it into a complete musical,” remembers Condon. “I was hopeful they would use all [the new songs] and I was excited that they were interested in it.” But more on the songs later.
An adulthood dream
Condon’s enthusiasm to remake the fairy tale surprisingly hasn’t been a childhood dream. The first time the director experienced Beauty and the Beast was, by his own admission, well into adulthood. But despite his delay in getting to it, the film had a lasting impact. “It came about at a time when there were no musicals and the genre had died up,” he says. “And even though it was animated, it really introduced the audiences to the conventions of people breaking into song. I loved that about it and I thought it was very much based on classic live action musicals.” It inspired Condon to bring the musical film back to the fore. After all, Condon has written and directed two Academy award-winning musicals, Chicago (2002) and Dreamgirls (2006).
Beauty and the Beast has offered Condon the rare opportunity to blend two of his cinematic sensibilities: marrying musicals with horror. “The beast is a monster and when you first see him in his castle, that very much feels like a gothic horror,” says Condon. “I think and what appealed to me was that [ Beauty and The Beast ] was just a children’s film.” He adds that the original too was dark with the wolf battles and the melancholy nature of the Beast.
With the upcoming live action musical, Condon admits to veering slightly away from the original. In addition to featuring Disney’s first gay character — La Fou played by Josh Gad — Condon deliberately included an element of gender equality. “It felt important these two characters, man and woman, be able to go toe-to-toe and match each other in intelligence,” he says. “You start from that it’s already a big shift from the original.” For instance, the 1991 animated feature had an illiterate Beast. But Condon’s Beast is a voracious reader with an impressive library that leaves Belle speechless and also provides fodder for their conversations.
Old composer, new songs
In another bid to make the film his own, Condon also got the 1991 film’s music composer Alan Menken to score and create three new songs for his 2017 remake. “We find more about the back story about each character,” says the director about the additions. There’s ‘How does a moment last forever’ about Belle losing her mother; ‘Days in the sun’ that offers a glimpse into the Beast’s childhood; and ‘Evermore’ sung by the Beast when he sacrifices his love for Belle for her to be with her father. “Alan has written this incredible song, and the Beast didn’t get that expression in the original animated film,” says Condon. “It was just great to have him write something new for that moment.”
With musical additions, marked inclusion (in terms of race and sexuality) and gender equality, the 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast certainly sparks discourse on matters that need to be highlighted. But it remains to be seen whether Disney’s magnum opus — a musical that took fours years to make — will have the same impact as the animated version.
