Beauty and The Beast - Adaptations

Adaptations

The tale has been notably adapted for screen, stage, prose, and television over the years.

• Beastly by Alex Flinn sets the story in modern day Manhattan.
• Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast and Rose Daughter both by author Robin McKinley.
• Belle: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Cameron Dokey, and Spirited by Nancy Holder, both part of the Once Upon A Time.
• East by Edith Pattou, based on the story East of the Sun and West of the Moon a Norse variation.
• The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey, part of the Elementals series.
• Beast by Donna Jo Napoli A retelling set in Persia and told in the beast's point of view.
• Roses & Thorns : Beauty and the Beast Retold by Chris Anne Wolfe, a retelling of the classic story where both protagonists are female.
• Beauty and the Beast ... The Story Retold. Laura E. Richards. London: Blickie & Son, 1886. Also, Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1886.
• A French version entitled La Belle et la Bête was made in 1946, directed by Jean Cocteau, starring Jean Marais as the Beast and Josette Day as the Beauty. This version adds a subplot involving Belle's suitor Avenant. In 1994, Philip Glass wrote an opera, "La Belle et la Bête", based on Cocteau's film. Glass's composition follows the film scene by scene, effectively providing a new original soundtrack for the movie.
• A 1952 animated feature film The Scarlet Flower directed by Lev Atamanov and produced at the Soyuzmultfilm. It was restored at the Gorky Film Studio in 1987 and is now widely available on several video and DVD editions in Russia (an English-subtitled version has not been released).
• A 1962 version directed by Edward L. Cahn, starring Joyce Taylor and Mark Damon, had the Beast as a prince who transformed into werewolf at night, with makeup by Universal's Jack Pierce.
• In 1987, The Cannon Group and Golan-Globus Productions released Beauty and the Beast, a musical live action version, directed by Eugene Marner, starring John Savage as Beast, and Rebecca De Mornay as Beauty, with original music by Lori McKelvey. It was released on VHS in 1988 by Cannon Video, and on DVD in 2005 by MGM Home Entertainment.
• In 1991, Walt Disney Feature Animation produced a musical animated film entitled Beauty and the Beast, directed by Kirk Wise & Gary Trousdale, with a screenplay by Linda Woolverton, and songs by Alan Menken & Howard Ashman. Like the 1946 version, the Disney version also names Beauty "Belle" and gives her a handsome suitor (here named Gaston) who eventually plots to kill the Beast. Beauty and the Beast won Academy Awards for Best Song and Best Original Score, in addition to becoming the first animated film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. It was also one of only two animated films (the other was 1955's Lady and the Tramp) included in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions list, which announced the 100 greatest love stories of all time, and is now considered one of The Walt Disney Company's classic animated films.
• Children's film producer Diane Eskenazi produced Beauty and the Beast, directed by Masakazu Higuchi and Chinami Namba, for Golden Films in 1993. The film, which relied on moderate animation techniques but was mostly faithful to the original tale, featured classical compositions as opposed to an original soundtrack, featuring the works of many well-known popular composers.
• A 2003 Viking period film directed by David Lister was alternately known as Beauty and the Beast and Blood of Beasts.
• A dark version of the fairy tale updated to modern times, director Robert Beaucage's 2008 film Spike was described (at its premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival where it was chosen as part of the Best of the Fest) as "Angela Carter rewriting La Belle et la Bête as an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
• Another modern take on Beauty and the Beast is Beastly, starring Alex Pettyfer as the beast (named Kyle) and Vanessa Hudgens as the love interest (named Lindy). Directed by Daniel Barnz and based on the novel by Alex Flinn, it was released on 18 March 2011. The story places the basics of the original fairy tale in the context of a contemporary American high school. The film also features Neil Patrick Harris as Kyle's blind tutor, Mary-Kate Olsen as a goth girl responsible for cursing Kyle and causing his subsequent transformation.
• George C. Scott turned in a made-for-TV rendition in 1976, which aired as part of the "Hallmark Hall of Fame". Scott was nominated for an Emmy for his performance.
• In 1984, Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre aired Beauty and the Beast starring Klaus Kinski and Susan Sarandon. The script, sets, makeup and costumes were based on the 1946 film.
• Beauty and the Beast, which owed as much to detective shows and fantasy fiction as to the fairy tale, originally broadcast from 1987 to 1989. This was centered around the relationship between Catherine (played by Linda Hamilton), an attorney who lived in New York City and Vincent (played by Ron Perlman), a gentle but lion-faced "beast" who dwells in the tunnels beneath the city. Wendy Pini created two issues of a comic-book adaptation of the TV series. The series was cancelled when ratings fell after Hamilton decided to leave the show at the end of the second season.
• Beauty and the Beast (2012) Remake of the 1987 TV series with Jay Ryan and Kristin Kreuk
• Both ABC and the CW have ordered pilots for television shows based on the classic fairy tale with the CW version being a remake of the 1980s television series..
• A variation of the story was incorporated into an episode of the ABC TV series Once Upon a Time entitled "Skin Deep" in which Beauty/Belle is played by Emilie de Ravin and the Beast is this series' version of Rumpelstiltskin, as played by Robert Carlyle.
• The Disney film was adapted for the stage by Linda Woolverton and Alan Menken, who had worked on the film. Howard Ashman, the original lyricist, had died, and additional lyrics were written by Tim Rice. Seven new songs were added to those appearing in the original film score in the stage version. "Human Again" was written for the film by Menken and Ashman, but cut during the storyboarding phase because of continuity problems. Modified by Menken and Rice to work in the stage production, "Human Again" was later added to the film itself in a new scene produced for its 2002 IMAX reissue. Later, another song, "A Change In Me", was added for Belle. There is a great deal of emphasis on pyrotechnics, costuming and special effects to produce the imagery of the enchanted castle that was produced by Disney Theatrical. Some characters are given names and bigger roles, like the feather duster (Babette) and the Wardrobe (Madame de la Grande Bouche). This version of Beauty and the Beast is often examined in gender studies because of the underlying female and male roles it presents to young audiences. Disney's stage musical version of Beauty and the Beast closed on 29 July 2007 after 5,464 regular performances (and 46 previews). The 17th (and final) Belle was played by Anneliese van der Pol and Donny Osmond returned to play Gaston in the final performance. With Disney set to release its Broadway version of The Little Mermaid on 3 November 2007, it was believed that having two Disney heroines on Broadway at the same time would divide audiences between the two shows. The Little Mermaid ran through 30 August 2009 in the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre – the same theatre that ran Beauty and the Beast from 1999–2007.
• A hidden object game Mystery Legends: Beauty and the Beast was released in 2012.
• Fashion Beast, a 1980s screenplay by Alan Moore that was adapted into a graphic novel in 2012