As Beauty and the Beast comes closer to release, more details have emerged about what could have been in the live-action version.
Creating a remake is not easy. Adhere too closely, and you’ll face criticism for doing nothing to push the material forward. Alter too much, and the reverse will become true among the fanbase. Now, take a classic, Beauty and the Beast, and transport it to the realm of live-action. Already, a small theater has famously refused to show it because of the revelation that LeFou is gay. But someone has to tell LeFou they’re afraid they’ve been thinking, for LeFou to mention how it’s a dangerous pastime to do. That someone is Gaston.
Luke Evans on Gaston
Entertainment Weekly spoke to Luke Evans, who has brought him to life for this new adaptation, and Evans revealed what we might have seen on screen when it came to Gaston:
"“The fact of the story is that Gaston is a war hero and an army captain, and the only reason he’s got this celebrity status in Villeneuve is because when he was about 16, he protected the town from a pack of Portuguese marauders in 1740.”"
Even EW responded by saying “Wait, that makes so much sense.” The thing of it is that it does make plenty of sense when it comes to his valuing his strength and thinking Belle should fall at his feet. All of a sudden, Gaston becomes a complex villain, the kind that Disney doesn’t always do so well. LeFou himself actually would have developed further as well; Evans said to EW that LeFou and Gaston shared these experiences.
However, it seems like the film may not explicitly spell all of this out for us. After all Evans also said that his Gaston seems like “more of the Gaston that we remember.”
Why would this decision come down this way? We’ve noted before that Disney seems to be trading primarily on pulling fans of the original in. That comes from observations of its press push in these final weeks and days. If those fans, who are quite passionate, see Gaston changed too much, they may very well take to the internet and get to badmouthing.
And that, well, would be a dangerous pastime for Disney.
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Beauty and the Beast arrives March 17.