From Wikipedia:
Beauty and the Beast is a 2017 American musical romantic fantasy film directed by Bill Condon from a screenplay written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos. Co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Mandeville Films,[1][7] the film is a live-action adaptation of Disney’s 1991 animated film of the same name, itself an adaptation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont‘s 1756 version of the fairy tale.[8] It features an ensemble cast including Emma Watson and Dan Stevens as the eponymous characters, with Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ian McKellen, and Emma Thompson in supporting roles.[9]
A live-action Beauty and the Beast remake was first announced in April 2014, with Condon hired to direct it; Watson, Stevens, Evans, and the rest of the cast signed on between January and April 2015. Principal photography lasted from May to August 2015, and took place at Shepperton Studios in England. With an estimated budget of around $255 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made.
The film premiered at Spencer House in London on February 23, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States in standard, Disney Digital 3-D, RealD 3D, IMAX, and IMAX 3D formats, along with Dolby Cinema on March 17, 2017.[10] Beauty and the Beast received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising its faithfulness to the original animated film, as well as elements from the Broadway musical, performances of the cast (particularly Watson and Stevens), visual style, musical score, songs, costume design, and production values, though criticism was drawn toward some of the character designs and its excessive similarity to the original.[11][12] The film grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing live-action musical film, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2017, and the 10th-highest-grossing film of all time. The film received four nominations at the 23rd Critics’ Choice Awards and two nominations at the 71st British Academy Film Awards. It also received Academy Award nominations for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design at the 90th Academy Awards. A spin-off/prequel TV series is in development.
Watson also appeared in the 2007 television adaptation of the novel Ballet Shoes and lent her voice to The Tale of Despereaux (2008). After the last Harry Potter film, she took on starring and supporting roles in My Week with Marilyn (2011), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) and The Bling Ring (2013), made an appearance as an exaggerated version of herself in This Is the End (2013), and played the title character’s adopted daughter in Noah (2014). She went on to star as Belle in the musical romantic fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Meg March in the coming-of-age film Little Women (2019), the latter of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Her other film roles include Regression (2015), Colonia (2015), and The Circle (2017).
From 2011 to 2014, Watson split her time between working on films and continuing her education, graduating from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in English literature in May 2014. Her modelling work has included campaigns for Burberry and Lancôme. She also lent her name to a line of clothing for People Tree. She was honoured by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2014, winning British Artist of the Year. That same year, she was appointed as a UN Women Goodwill ambassador and helped launch the UN Women campaign HeForShe, which advocates for gender equality.
In 2013, Evans starred as the main antagonist Owen Shaw in the blockbuster Fast & Furious 6, and also played Bard the Bowman in Peter Jackson‘s three-part adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit.[2] Evans also portrayed the vampire Dracula in the character’s 2014 film origin story, Dracula Untold.[3] In 2017, Evans starred as Gaston in Disney’s live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, and portrayed American psychologist William Moulton Marston, creator of fictional character Wonder Woman, in the biographical drama Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. He had a lead role in the period drama series The Alienist in 2018. He released his debut album At Last on 22 November 2019.
