"Beauty and the Beast" full movie director Bill Condon made the cast sing The Lion King's "Hakuna Matata" song while they were auditioning for their roles in the new live action movie.
Bill Condon, who is largely credited with reviving the movie musical genre through his "Chicago" screenplay and "Dreamgirls" adaptation, has made a prank on "Beauty and the Beast" live action movie cast. During auditions, he let the cast sing a completely different song to confuse them. Instead of well-loved songs such as "Belle," "Be My Guest," or "Something There," he made the cast sing "Hakuna Matata."
He told Vanity that when he first spoke to Disney about making an adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast," the production was not sure if they were going to do the new version as a musical. He responded to the ambivalence as any die-hard Disney fan might have: "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'?"
There will be certain changes in store for the live action movie, the director also revealed, but they would not shake things up so much that it would upset fans of the original "Beauty and the Beast."
The Disney movie will star Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as Beast, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, Kevin Kline as Maurice, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, Audra McDonald as Wardrobe, Stanley Tucci as Cadenza, Luke Evans as Gaston, and Josh Gad as LeFou.
Gad who is also starred in Adam Sandler's "Pixels" has been posting photos on Instagram showing a happy "Beauty and the Beast" cast including Emma Watson, Ian McKellen, Dan Stevens and Luke Evans. He has also just confirmed in a post that filming has already wrapped. The actor posted a photo of himself and Luke Evans hugging it out on snow-covered steps with the caption, "That's a wrap! Will miss the cast of #beautyandthebeast especially my brilliant Gaston #LukeEvans."
"Beauty and the Beast" has been scheduled for release on March 17, 2017. The script is written by Stephen Chbosky and is produced by Don Hahn, David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman.
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