Just when you thought the cast for Disney’s new, live-action Beauty And the Beast had reached peak cool, along come the two new additions. Ewan McGregor has scored the plum human-turned-singing object role as candlestick Lumiere{
Bill Condon is behind the camera for the film, which takes the 1991 animated version as its main inspiration. Emma Watson is Belle, the beauty who wins the heart of The Beast (Dan Stevens), a prince who is living under an evil spell. Also part of the cast are Luke Evans as Gaston, the cruel, jealous suitor who also hopes to win Belle’s heart, his bumbling servant Le Fou, played by Josh Gad and Kevin Kline as Belle’s father, Maurice.
And among the people who will be cursed as part of the Beast’s castle staff are Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Audra McDonald. Condon, working from a script by Stephen Chbosky, will start shooting next month in Shepperton Studios ready for a March 17, 2017 release.
McGregor will be seen in Last Days In The Desert, Miles Ahead, Jane Got A Gun and Our Kind Of Traitor. He’s also developing a directorial debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral. Tucci is once more part of the sprawling cast for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, which arrives here on November 20.