In late January Emma Watson was officially announced as Belle in Disney’s planned live-action version of Beauty And The Beast. Now Variety reports that she’s got someone to bother her Luke Evans has signed up to be the prancing, primping, egotistical ladies-man Gaston.
The fact Gaston is in the movie further suggests that Disney is planning to hew fairly close to the animated version, which isn’t too surprising considering the live-action stage version of that 1991 movie became one of the longest running shows in Broadway history.
Watson will play the independent young woman who ends up being locked in the castle of a prince, who has been cursed due to his selfishness to become a beast. While they initially hate one another, soon a bond begins to grow. Gaston is the self-obsessed hunter who decides that Belle should be his girlfriend, and isn’t impressed when she turns him down, or when he discovers she actually likes her hairy captor more than she likes him.
What the film doesn’t have yet is a beast, but it presumably won’t be long until it finds one.
Bill Condon is set to direct, with production due to kick off later this year.