Where to watch Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Trivia & production notes

• Disney initially planned to develop Beauty and the Beast as a dramatic film rather than a musical, but changed direction after recognizing that audiences responded well to the musical format following Frozen's success.
• Bill Condon nearly turned down the directing job after Disney initially proposed a more radical remake approach similar to Snow White and the Huntsman, but reconsidered once the studio agreed to make it a full musical.
• An early version of the script included Gaston being cursed by the Enchantress at the film's end, but this idea was abandoned before production.
• Emma Watson was the sole choice of Alan F. Horn for the role of Belle, who had previously overseen her casting in the Harry Potter films while running Warner Bros.
• Emma Watson had been attached to star in Guillermo del Toro's Beauty and the Beast adaptation for Warner Bros. before that project fell through.
• Idris Elba auditioned for the role of Gaston, which ultimately went to Luke Evans.
• The fictional village of Villeneuve in the film was named after Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, who wrote the original fairy tale.
• Dan Stevens wore a forty-pound gray suit on stilts throughout much of filming, and he spent three months in pre-production learning to waltz while wearing the stilts for the iconic dance scene.
• Bill Condon reshot a sequence in the "Days in the Sun" musical number after test audiences became confused by an actress who resembled another cast member.
• The castle in the film was inspired by the real Château de Chambord in France, and the massive set of Villeneuve measured nearly 29,000 square feet.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Beauty and the Beast (2017 film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.