Looks like there will be more than one Belle in Disney and director Bill Condon’s new live-action rendering of Beauty And The Beast. We already have Emma Watson playing Belle, the beauty who wins the heart of Dan Stevens’ Beast and now Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who played a very different Belle in the eponymous drama last year, has been cast as Plumette.
In the 1991 cartoon version, Plumette is the Beast’s maid, who, thanks to the dark curse that befalls everyone in his castle, is turned into a feather duster.
This take on the tale boasts a great ensemble alongside Stevens, Watson and Mbatha-Raw, with Luke Evans as Gaston, Josh Gad as Le Fou, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, Kevin Kline as Belle’s father Maurice, Ian McKellen as talking clock Cogsworth and Audra McDonald as Garderobe. Condon is working from a script by Stephen Chbosky.
The cameras will be cranking this May at Shepperton Studios, with the movie targeting a March 17, 2017 release. Mbatha-Raw, last seen in Jupiter Ascending, is at work opposite Matthew McConaughey in Gary Ross’ The Free State Of Jones.