Coming Attractions: Beauty & the Beast hits the Screen - a lot...

One of the questions I asked all of out interviewees this year was what they made of the resurrgence in popularity for fairy tales in TV and movies.  With tv shows like Once Upon a Time and Grimm, hit cartoons like Tangled and Shrek/Puss in Boots, and movies like Mirror, Mirror and the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsmen, fairy tales are sort of everwhere right now.  And (like everthing else these days...) a bunch of older movies and cartoons are being rereleased in 3D.  And that's just the beginning.

Four (four!) new adaptations of Beauty and the Beast are going to be hitting screens both big and small in the near future.  Because if there's anything Hollywood knows how to do, it's take a concept that's working and flood the market with knockoffs until you can't bear it anymore.
SO:
1. Capitalizing on the success of Once Upon a Time, ABC will be giving us its take on Beauty and the Beast... EW reports ABCs version as

"A fantastical reimagining of the classic fairy tale set in a mythical, dangerous world wherein a beautiful and tough princess discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast." 

with whom she forges an alliance in the hopes of preventing a rebellion.
Cast includes:

Ruth Bradley as Grace,
aka Beauty

Alan Dale as the Emporer

Christopher Egan as hottie Garrick,
I'm going to guess he's our Gaston

Colin Lawrence as Yanta Mho.
I have know idea who Yanta Mho is,
but just look at him...

Karen LeBlanc as Ehren,
a rebel faction leader

Darius Campbell as Shiro,
aka The Beast!

A whole bunch of other people have been cast, too, which you can find out about here.

2. The CW will also be presenting its version of BatB, but this time with a different tried-and-true formula - a reboot of the 1980's version of the tv show that starred Linda Hamilton and this guy, that they claim is Ron Perlman underneath:

The CW's reboot will be

"Loosely based on the CBS’ Beauty and the Beast series from the 1980s, this is a modern-day romantic love story with a procedural twist." (EW)

I never watched the 80's version (mostly because I was a child in the 80's and I stuck with the real thing then.  #talkinaboutpicturebooksyo), but I have to say I find the idea of a reboot with a procedural twist intriguing.  Then again, it's not working out so well for Grimm, which started strong and is flatlining, so...guess we'll see.

Beauty

Um, Beast?

Deadline gives all sorts of juicy deets on the reboot, which starts Kristen Kreuk and Jay Ryan, saying it  "centers on Catherine (Kreuk), a tough-minded NYPD homicide detective haunted by witnessing her mother’s murder nine years ago and the killers’ quick demise at the hands of a Beast. After years of searching, Catherine finally finds the Beast, Vincent Koslow, the survivor of a military experiment that went disastrously wrong, and becomes the protector of his secret life as a superhero."

3. On the big screen, Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) will be presenting his most likely bloody and brain-twisty take on BatB.  There's not a lot of info on this one yet, but I think this may be the one I'm most excited about, because if there's anyone as obsessed with fairy tales - and their darker sides - as me, it's GDT.  Plus, what we do know (via The Hollywood Reporter) of it all screams awesome:

Emma mothereffing Watson

• It's a take on Robin McKinley's BatB version, Beauty (though it's "evolved" beyond that...)
• It will star Emma Watson (!!) in the main role
• Andrew Davies (who writes every damn thing I like) is attached as the writer.
• GDT is both producer and director.  Also, man of general awesome.

4. There's also going to be a French movie version (which is fitting, as the original author was a french lady with a really long name); it will star Lea Seydoux and Vincent Cassel - and that's about all I know...

So, looking forward to any of these?  Is it too much, or just enough?  And which are on your Must Watch list? Personally, I find it a little silly that this many BatBs are coming out in such a short time period, but I love it all the same and intend to watch every one of them, and love every minute.

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