The dramatic death of Jack The Giant Slayer (especially after the tepid performance of Snow White And The Huntsman and Mirror Mirror) would seem to have spelled an end to the trend of dark fairy-tale reimaginings—in the boring real world. In the magical make-believe world of movie studios, such setbacks are just the tragic backstory to be overcome by a plucky hero, preferably in 3-D, which is why Disney is forging ahead with a new live-action, 3-D, dark reimagining of Beauty And The Beast called The Beast, from Trance screenwriter Joe Ahearne.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve been alive and not mentally insane for the past year: Beauty And The Beast has been tipped for several reimaginings of late, including a Guillermo del Toro version with Emma Watson that’s due to shoot this summer, another pitch from Silent Hill director Christophe Gans, and two competing pilots at ABC and The CW—the latter of which actually developed into a show that would seem to suggest audience apathy for the entire premise. That’s in addition to the 2011 reimagining Beastly and Disney’s own 3-D re-release of the animated Beauty And The Beast, the surfeit of which hasn’t sufficiently covered the story of a pretty girl who suppresses the urge to vomit on then stab a monster, using love. But none of these are Disney's fairy-tale reimaginings, except that one that was. And bitch, they own this game.