Beauty and the Beast: How to re-tell a story that is already so beloved by millions? That was the enormous challenge that faced director Bill Condon and myself when we were offered the remarkable opportunity to re-tell a tale as old as time.
This was my first time working with Bill, although I had met him a few times before, most recently in the deserts of Morocco. I really admired both his work and the fact that he jumps between independent films and big blockbusters, and can combine the sensibilities of both in his approach.
Where to start? I last saw the Disney animated version of Beauty and the Beast when my son was small, so that would have been more than fifteen years ago. This was about creating the story, not just recreating the animation, so I chose not to refer back to it in detail. I relied on my sense of the story’s DNA, coupled with the wonderful songs that one can’t help but remember.
The reality of the period was a touchstone for the production. Unlike many Disney fairy tales, Beauty and the Beast is not set in an imagined “fairy tale” land. This story is set in a real time and a real place, or at least that is where it starts, France 1740s in a little village called Villeneuve...and we were off!
At the beginning of any film, my starting point is to accumulate visual research. Here I work very closely with Phil Clark, Phil and I have worked together on many films and pitches over the last six or seven years. He and I have in-depth chats about every aspect of the script, the characters, and the journey. We look at many facets of the period and place and then let our imaginations run...for a while. Sometimes we can end up with thousands of images, but with looking comes the knowledge and the process that informs everything. It is the best starting point.
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