Man! I feel like a teapot: Martin Short and Shania Twain in talks for ABC’s Beauty And The Beast: A 30th Celebration
The upcoming Beauty And The Beast TV special stars H.E.R. and Josh Groban
Aux News Beauty and the Beast
Martin Short and Shania Twain are entering final talks to sign on to ABC’s upcoming rendition of Beauty And The Beast, as reported by Variety. 30 years ago, the 1991 Disney classic became the first animated movie to get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Then, it went on to have a successful life as a Broadway musical before it became a live-action remake starring Emma Watson in 2017. Now, this new version will be a blend of live-action and animation, so these are potentially voice roles.
Short is expected to play Lumière. The veteran comedy actor currently stars in the Hulu mystery series Only Murders In The Building, which recently released its second season and has a third on the way.
Twain, meanwhile, would be playing Mrs. Potts. The superstar country singer was the subject of the Netflix documentary Not Just A Girl earlier this year, which followed her rise to fame in the ’90s to the recording of her upcoming sixth studio album. She just shared its first single, and her first new music since 2017, “Waking Up Dreaming.”
Beauty And The Beast: A 30th Celebration stars H.E.R. as Belle and Josh Groban as the Beast, which is a truly remarkable combination of target demographics. It was previously announced that the special will be adding supplementary musical numbers to the source material and will feature performances recorded in front of a live studio audience.
Variety also reports that David Alan Grier will be portraying Cogsworth. Joshua Henry has been cast as Gaston, and Rita Moreno will be providing narration.
The special is being directed by Hamish Hamilton, who previously made The Little Mermaid Live! for the network. Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu serves as an executive producer; he previously established his interest in musicals with In The Heights and is currently at work on Wicked.
Beauty And The Beast: A 30th Celebration airs on ABC on December 15 and will be available on Disney+ on December 16.
16 Comments
Angela Lansbury is still alive at age 96 and hasn’t officially retired yet. She should reprise her Mrs. Potts. BTW, that wasn’t just a celebrity casting stunt in the animated Disney version — Lansbury was a successful Broadway singer besides acting.
It was all great and good, yes, huzzah, but I’m quite sure Ms Lansbury is quite retired from all that acting stuff right now then, thank you very much, goood daaaay, ta-taaah, don’t scuff the hollyhocks on your way out the privy, then, huff-huff, ho-hum, then, and all that.
She sang the title song back in the 25th anniversary and still sounded lovely.
All of the major voices for the original BatB, well except for Robby Benson, had heavy musical theatre (if not always heavy Broadway) backgrounds. It was just before Robin Williams in Aladdin started the celebrity voice trend. But, due to all her time on Murder She Wrote, I think Mrs Potts was Lansbury’s first musical theatre related role since Sweeney Todd, and an ill-fated Mame revival.
We can probably thank Howard Ashman and Alan Menken for bringing in all that Broadway talent. There are some real heavy hitters in the casts of most of the Disney Renaissance musicals – Angela Lansbury, Jerry Orbach, Lea Salonga, Nathan Lane, Judy Kuhn, Roger Bart, Lilias White, to name a few – and even to this day in more recent films, like Donna Murphy and Idina Menzel.
Yes, I think initially that was mostly Howard Ashman (when he was still alive) who pushed for Broadway members in the cast (even Little Mermaid, he had just worked with Jodi Benson on the flop musical he did with Marvin Hamlisch, Smile).
With Short and Twain, perhaps it should be called Beauty and the Beast, Eh?
Ah yes, there’s no better way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a history-making film than by remaking it for the second time. Bravo, Disney, bravo.
To be fair, while I didn’t think the Little Mermaid special done in this way was anything, well, special, these things are less remakes than elevated concerts.
So, similar to that Coco concert special on Disney+? OK, that would be more fitting.
Don’t get me wrong, this sounds alright, but is it going to keep me warm in the middle of the night?
The best thing about bein a teapot, is the prerogative to have a little cup.
LMAO
Well… they have the good luck of not featuring Emma Watson singing. That’s a plus.
stars H.E.R. as Belle
The first thought I had was of the Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman show and was very confused as a result.