Back in April, Disney “put on pause” what was supposed to be its next live-action remake, “Tangled,” as the studio continued to deal with the disastrous ramifications of its “Snow White” remake.
A few months later came the news that the film was back in development — and that it was being fast-tracked. If we thought the time had come for the mouse house to hit the pause button on its onslaught of live-action remakes, this indicated the opposite.
Now comes word that Disney has greenlit a live-action spinoff that absolutely nobody asked for: the story of Gaston, the villain of 1991’s “Beauty and the Beast,” the ridiculously handsome, muscle-bound human embodiment of a hair gel commercial gone rogue.
Gaston was in Disney’s 2017 live-action “Beauty and the Beast,” directed by Bill Condon — he was played by Luke Evans and largely stayed true to the original 1991 animated version: arrogant, self-delusional, and obsessed with Belle. That film ended up grossing over $1.26 billion worldwide.
Dave Callaham (“Shang-Chi”) is writing the script, which is being described as a “swashbuckling” affair. No director is attached at this time. Kate Herron and Briony Redman penned a previous draft.
Disney currently has “Tangled,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “The Aristocats,” “The Sword in the Stone,” “Bambi,” “Robin Hood,” and “Hercules” in some form of development. Those are the ones we know of. Honest question: what was the last good Disney live-action remake? Jon Favreau’s “The Jungle Book,” released way back in 2016?
What this past summer’s billion-dollar success, “Lilo & Stitch,” proved is that audiences will still lap it up. Nostalgia sells. So, no, Rachel Zegler did not inadvertently help kill Disney’s live-action remakes — she just had the studio flinch for a tiny second. And now, on with the show.