BEAUTY & THE BEAST - Emma Watson, Disney Live-Action

[AndyDursin]

Watson turned down Cinderella but she's accepted the role of Belle as the Disney live-action fairy tale train keeps chugging along.

Emma Watson to play Belle in Disney's live action Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon. She had turned down Cinderella in 2013.

[Monterey Jack]

Emma's certainly beautiful enough for the role.

[AndyDursin]

This will use the Menken-Ashman songs so it will basically be a film adaptation of the Broadway show I'm guessing.

[Paul MacLean]

I'm wondering how well this will translate to live action. It's easy to sell a singing teapot as believable with animation; I can't imagine them pulling it off mixing CGI (which they'll have to use) with real actors.

[AndyDursin]

I'm guessing they'll use the stage version as a guide as it was quite popular. Condon's hiring would seem to confirm that as he directed the movie version of DREAMGIRLS.

Frankly I thought Condon was a weird hire until I remembered this is adapting the animated movie, it's not a "reimagining".

Watson's casting makes perfect sense, and maybe she wanted to do this instead of the umpeenth version of CINDERELLA.

[Monterey Jack]

But can Watson sing?

[AndyDursin]

There are always ways around that

I never saw the stage version, but it always struck me Belle herself wasn't a part of the movie's best songs (Be Our Guest or the title song).

[AndyDursin]

Why am I not surprised Bill Condon introduced an "exclusively gay moment" into this story?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... Redirect=1

[AndyDursin]

Reviews are very mixed and some outright negative. Brian Orndorf's Blu-Ray.com review says:

....at times, a shot-for-shot remake of the animated film. The production attempts to establish its own personality through diverse casting choices and a weird fixation on personal sexuality, but Condon comes up short most of the time, only succeeding at bloating the picture past the two hour mark.

...and

when Watson sings, the illusion is snapped, finding the actress unable to muster much power in the vocal department. The auto-tune is pronounced during Watson’s numbers, making one long for a professional singer in the role, to spin soundtrack gold. Once Belle’s introduction is made with an eponymous tune, it becomes clear that something is off about this “Beauty and the Beast,” with vocal limitations joining the feature’s rather gloomy atmosphere, making the romantic adventure feel suffocating, not tender and wise.

Again, what did they think was going to happen when signing Condon onto make this film?

[Paul MacLean]

I remember watching this scene and thinking "Why, Bill Condon would be perfect to direct a movie based on a much-loved children's musical!"