For British actress Emma Watson, who starred as the incredibly smart Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" series and became the United Nations ambassadress for gender equality, playing Belle for Disney's latest live action movie "Beauty and the Beast" has been nothing short of a dream come true.
She was unable to attend the D23 event promoting the live action film, but she did create a short video for fans, according to the Times of India.
"We have had an unbelievable time shooting 'Beauty and the Beast.' It has been a complete dream come true. I can't wait for the film to release in 2017," she said in the video.
According to reports, the new version of "Beauty and the Beast" will be using some songs from the original 1991 animated film and the Broadway musical. However, it will also feature new tracks also written by Alan Menken, who penned the soundtrack for the animated film.
Aside from Watson, "Downton Abbey" alum Dan Stevens will be portraying beast, "The Hobbit" actor Luke Evans will be Gaston, and "Frozen" voice actor Josh Gad will be his faithful sidekick LeFou.
Ewan McGregor would be playing Lumiere, Emma Thompson will be Mrs. Potts, Kevin Kline will be Maurice, Gugu Mbatha-Taw will be Plumette, Stanley Tucci will be Cadenza, and Audra McDonald will be Wardrobe. The script is written by Stephen Chbosky.
Director Bill Condon revealed that Disney originally did not like to do a musical, but he convinced them otherwise. "When I first spoke to Disney about doing 'Beauty and the Beast,' they actually weren't sure they were going to do this new version as a musical, and I said, 'With all due respect, I think you're crazy. The songs are too good. You're going to spend all this time making a huge, gorgeous live-action 'Beauty and the Beast' and not do 'Be Our Guest?'" he told Vanity Fair.
They will also be including certain things in the movie that are not part of the animated film or the Broadway musical, and Condon hopes that fans of the classic fairy tale will appreciate it.
"I wouldn't say we're changing the story so much as sort of making connections that in a lot of cases were right under the surface," he said. "Honestly, there are so many people who love the original film and love the Broadway show, and they've had two decades now to pick them apart and point out big questions and plot holes... So hopefully, this will be a film where a die-hard fan can jump up and say, 'Exactly!'"
The film will be hitting theaters on March 17, 2017.
