Despite announcements from the project, Disney has put the Beauty and the Beast origin story prequel, about Gaston and LeFou, on hold.
Oh no … /sarcasm.
The Josh Gad and Luke Evans-led project (reprising their roles from the live-action movie) was announced back in March 2020 and was set to be a six-episode series origin story about—I guess how many people Gaston killed in the war as LeFou sadly gay thirsted over him in the background?
I don’t know. I didn’t ask for this.
Later, it was picked up for an eight-episode series, with Gad set to serve as showrunner alongside Once Upon a Time creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Once Upon a Time creators, you say? Well that will at least be two seasons of fun before it starts getting ridiculous.
So why is it on hold? Well, it seems like our two leading men are just busy with other projects that interfered with a shifting timeline for the series. Josh Gad hasn’t stopped working since he became a snowman, and Evans is already going to be in the upcoming live-action Pinocchio, among a bunch of other projects, because he’s gorgeous and deserves it.
Honestly, this project always seemed like a bit of a mess. The 2017 Beauty and the Beast live-action film, starring Emma Watson as Belle, was something out of a Tumblr committee in terms of casting and desire to fill in all the gaps of the original film (and no shade because I, too, grew up on Tumblr).
It went on to make a billion dollars, giving bittersweet justification for the company to keep turning their classic pieces of animation into underbaked, quick films that could also make easy money with a few key pieces of good casting.
In the case of LeFou, it was the first time that Disney pulled its “we are gonna give you really boring LGBTQ representation with this character no one cares about,” and they were absolutely successful in making it ridiculous.
LeFou, which means the fool, was just in love with Gaston, and during the mob sacking of the Beast’s castle, he realizes that Gaston sucks and does a morality switch. He’s also shown dancing with a man at the finale, so far off in the distance that you can’t see it unless you’re looking for it.
Wow, so … meaningful.
As Beauty and the Beast was my favorite growing up, I am a little bit salty about all the over-the-top bad choices the film made. But what I especially don’t understand is the point of having a prequel with Gaston and LeFou. We already know the endgame, and I don’t think there is anything to be gained by showing how Gaston became … Gaston.
After all, his PTSD is something that was barely touched on in the film, and being a sexist jerk in ye olden times France isn’t exactly noteworthy. It might be interesting if they actually explore LeFou’s queerness, but I doubt Disney’s ability to do that. They couldn’t even handle that with Loki, and this seems like it could only be a step backwards from the nothing we already got in the movie.
Who knows what is coming next for this project, but … at least we have the original animated film’s soundtrack.
(via The Hollywood Reporter, image: Disney)
