About an hour ago, Entertainment Weekly shared the cover for their upcoming cover, which has exclusive photos and cast interviews on the movie. Already going viral, the EW website has shared nine stills from the movie, giving fans the best taste to-date of what the film will be like.
From EW:
For this week’s cover story, EW visited the film’s U.K. set and spoke with [the cast], as well as director Bill Condon and costume designer Jacqueline Durran, who talked about creating the new version of the iconic yellow dress Belle wears in the original film’s ballroom scene. In addition, we chatted with Ewan McGregor, who voices the enchanted, “Be Our Guest”-performing candelabra Lumière, and Sir Ian McKellen, who plays the clock Cogsworth and was apparently desperate to get his own big production number. “I kept singing what I thought would be a rather good addition to the score,” says the X-Men franchise star. “‘My name is Cogsworth!/ And I’m a clock!/Ticktock!’ But I didn’t get my own song.”
Readers can also find out about the film’s new songs — penned by Alan Menken and Tim Rice — and feast their eyes on an array of exclusive photos featuring all of the aforementioned characters as well as Belle’s father, Maurice (Kevin Kline), Mrs Potts. (Emma Thompson), and Plumette (Gugu Mbatha-Raw).
Clark Collis, Senior Editor for Entertainment Weekly, gave a brief and entertaining interview, talking about writing the cover story for the upcoming issue, which you can see (along with sneak peeks) below:
G-nome. Heh.
Okay then.
Are you ready for the images?
Here they are:
We have no doubt there are fans out there in happy tears right now, while others are still scratching their heads over those enchanted objects. Overall, it doesn't appear to be a great departure from the animated classic at all. Our one query is that it seems a bit dark with lots of browns and dark, moody lighting, but then, these are production stills, and they can often look quite different in tone from the movie. Either way, everyone in the office here has announced they'd happily cough up for silver screen tickets.
Bustle grabbed this preview from the video shared above, a cropped shot of one of the spreads from the upcoming EW issue, specifically discussing costuming and design. If you look closely you can see comments about that famous yellow dress.
“For Emma, it was important that the dress was light and that it had a lot of movement… In Emma’s reinterpretation, Belle is an active princess. She did not want a dress that was corseted or that would impede her in any way.”To see more you'll need to pick up a copy of Entertainment Weekly, which will be on stands this Friday, and/or subscribe for the exclusive access features.
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| The current Twitter header for Entertainment Weekly. You can see a larger version, showing all the nuances in expressions, HERE. |
Update at 1:16pm, same day: We have just learned that Emma Watson has been participating in the Books in the Underground movement, leaving copies of books they love, all around the London Tube. The BBC reported:
“The star left the novels as part of the Books On The Underground movement which sees ‘book fairies’ leave their favourite reads for people to enjoy. Watson left about 100 books with some including a hand-written note….Books on the Underground started in 2012 and leave about 150 books in stations across London each week.”
Emma Watson is a book fairy! Can we like this woman any more?
Fairy Tale Bonus of the Day:
Ever wonder who was Linda Woolverton's inspiration for writing Belle as she did? (Woolverton was screenwriter of Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast.)
EW and Bustle shared some behind the scenes on this earlier in May this year, which we're now sharing some of below:
Entertainment Weekly... interviewed the legendary screenwriter behind the movie, Linda Woolverton, to ask her about Belle's development as a character — and, in turn, to uncover one big thing about Beauty and the Beast that even hardcore fans don't know... Probably the most unexpected part of the interview centers on how Hollywood back then was dominated by "the whole idea of the heroine-victim" — something hard to imagine post tough-Disney heroines like Princess Jasmine, Mulan, and Merida. Woolverton discovered her own background in the feminist movement in the '60s and '70s meant she "definitely couldn’t buy that this smart, attractive young girl, Belle, would be sitting around and waiting for her prince to come."
"That she was someone who suffers in silence and only wants a pure rose? That she takes all this abuse but is still good at heart? I had a hard time with that," she told EW.
And then she revealed her inspiration: Katherine Hepburn in 1933's Little Women (playing Jo).
When EW asked Woolverton about her having said she modeled the character after Katharine Hepburn in Little Women, the screenwriter responded:
Yes. That was a real depiction of womanhood. I think you can take on current issues of today through fairy tales or the mythic. And so that was my fight, always saying, 'The audience is just not gonna buy this anymore.'
