Move Over, Beauty & The Beast: Disney Developing a Live-Action Movie Centered on Gaston

Beauty & the Beast's villain, Gaston, is getting the live-action movie treatment... again! Except this time he's the lead.

What's Happening:

• Deadline is reporting that Disney is developing a new live-action movie focused on Gaston.
• The script is being written by Dave Callaham, while Michelle Rejwan (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Andor) is producing. No director is involved as yet. There was a previous draft for the project written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman.
• Callaham has become something of a go-to movie franchise guy in terms of his screenplays, with credits that include Zombieland: Double Tap, Wonder Woman 1984, Mortal Kombat, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. His upcoming films include 2027 releases Godzilla x Kong: Supernova and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.
• According to Deadline, this will be a completely new version of Gaston played by a new actor, with no connection to the previous live-action movie incarnation of the character played by Luke Evans in the 2017 Beauty & The Beast.
• Originally, the plan was for Evans and Josh Gad (who played LeFou in the 2017 film) to star in a spinoff prequel series of that hit movie for Disney+ before that project was halted in 2022.
• Deadline says the new Gaston film will have "swashbuckling tones to it," but no other details are known as yet.
• Disney has received some pushback for multiple films like Maleficent and Cruella about their iconic villains that end up putting them in a much more sympathetic light and, it's often argued, diminish their villainy in the process. It's hard not to assume a Gaston movie would take a similar tactic, but we'll have to see as more details emerge.