It may have been knocked from the top of the box office by DreamWorks Animation’s The Boss Baby, but Disney’s Beauty and the Beast has enjoyed another solid weekend around the globe, pushing the live-action blockbuster’s global take to $876.3 million.
Beauty and the Beast has comfortably surpassed Disney’s previous live-action adaptations Cinderella ($543.5 million) and Maleficent ($758.5 million), and is closing in fast on The Jungle Book ($966.6 million) and Alice in Wonderland ($1.025 billion). It would seem that $1 billion is now a certainty for the Bill Condon-directed film, although earlier predictions of $1.5 billion may prove a little too high.
Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” is a live-action re-telling of the studio’s animated classic which refashions the classic characters from the tale as old as time for a contemporary audience, staying true to the original music while updating the score with several new songs. “Beauty and the Beast” is the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright, beautiful and independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a beast in his castle. Despite her fears, she befriends the castle’s enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beast’s hideous exterior and realize the kind heart and soul of the true Prince within.
Beauty and the Beast is directed by Bill Condon and sees Emma Watson as Belle alongside Dan Stevens as Beast, while the cast also includes Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, Luke Evans as Gaston, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, Stanley Tucci as Cadenza, Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, Kevin Kline as Maurice, Josh Gad as Le Fou and Audra McDonald as Garderobe.
