Friday, June 5, 2015

New Beauty and the Beast Songs in Live-Action Film

So...as we've already established, I'm super excited about the new Beauty and the Beast live-action film.

And today, there was some interesting news about the songs in the film. As the CinemaBlend article points out,

Unlike Maleficent and Cinderella before it, the film will follow in the footsteps of its animated counterpart by being a musical.
And while I remain a little skeptical about the singing ability of the main characters -- Emma Watson, Dan Stevens and Luke Evans, if only because I haven't heard them sing -- I'm super excited about the supporting cast. And this news seems promising.

First, there are going to be three new songs in the movie -- and they're not going to be songs from the musical. (Not that that's a bad thing; the songs in the musical are fine...but not as memorable as the songs from the film. Maybe that's just because I love the film-music so much.)

Second, one of the songs, "Days in the Sun," is going to be a lullaby "about all of the castle’s enchanted objects remembering what their lives were like as humans before they were transformed by the curse." In a way, I hope that this replaces "Human Again" (from the musical and a deleted scene on the DVD) because it just...didn't do it for me. Plus, if you cast Audra McDonald as Mme de la Grande Bouche, you should give her every opportunity to sing.

Finally--and perhaps the most interesting bit of news to come out of the interview with Menken -- is the song "Forever More," which replaces a song from the musical, "If I Can't Love Her":


According to Menken, the reason for this is:


The idea that "the Beast's moment in the film is a much later moment" is particularly interesting, and I'm curious as to how it will play out. What is the Beast's moment? Is it later than it is in the musical, or in the animated film? I'm really hoping there'll be some subtle, but important, changes to the animated film script -- at least with The Beast's characterization.

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