Beauty and the Beast

Condon’s 129 minute version follows the 1991 cartoon almost beat for beat, so the real question is how the Beast exists. Dan Stevens played most of the role in a forty pound grey suit on stilts, with his facial performance captured separately, and the cast rehearsed three months to waltz on those stilts. The result splits in two: the body carries the weight of a real person, while the face is a rendered layer on top, so nearly all the emotion travels through the eyes. Villeneuve was built as an enclosed set of roughly 2,670 square metres at Shepperton Studios, and the castle was modelled on the Château de Chambord. That is why the village scenes feel like a stage with no outside to walk into. Alan Menken and Tim Rice wrote four new songs; "Evermore" and "How Does a Moment Last Forever" also play over the credits, sung by Josh Groban and Celine Dion. Idris Elba auditioned for Gaston and lost the part. Who it is for: people who know the score by heart and want to study the costume work. Who it is not for: viewers drawn by the director’s remark about an "exclusively gay moment", which Condon later called overblown and which is a single blink and you miss it shot in the finale.