We spoke with “Beauty and the Beast” director Bill Condon about the film’s massive success and what it’s like to work with Emma Watson
As you know, Disney’s live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast was a smash hit at the box office. It currently holds the title of the highest-grossing film worldwide this year at nearly $1.3 billion in revenue. It’s also the highest-grossing film domestically this year at around $504 million (with Wonder Woman following at around $412 million), according to Box Office Mojo.
Not only that, but the film broke a number of records. Beauty holds the title for the seventh biggest opening for a movie — proving, once again, that there’s a huge audience for female-fueled films (and that there should be more of them). When asked about Beauty and the Beast‘s massive box-office successes, director Bill Condon told HelloGiggles that he hopes to accomplish similar feats with his upcoming project.
That project being Bride of Frankenstein.
"I think it's huge," he said of Beauty's accomplishments. "I'm very excited because right now I'm prepping Bride of Frankenstein and I hope, in the horror genre, to be able to continue that story. What I love about what we're doing with Bride is that we're turning that story and saying Eve comes first, and then Adam gets created."
He went on to say that it was exciting to see audiences of all kinds turn out to see Beauty and the Beast and embrace the musical genre.
"We'd had musical successes — Dreamgirls had been one of them — but Beauty almost felt subversive," said Condon, a self-proclaimed lover of the genre who is currently celebrating the 10th anniversary of Dreamgirls, which he wrote and directed.
“To go into these big audiences that covered every age group, [that were] male and female, and have them all sitting there while these dozen or so musical numbers were performed, it felt like what it was for me when I was really young, seeing The Sound of Music or something, that this genre really was something everybody was accepting now.”
Condon also recalled a favorite story from the making of Beauty and the Beast.
"Emma Watson and I worked really, really hard, and she contributed beyond just performance in the making of that movie, knowing how important Belle had been as a kind of groundbreaking [character] in the context of Disney in the '90s," Condon detailed. "We really wanted to translate that into the 21st Century."
“My favorite story is that Emma Watson, she had her VHS tape of Beauty and the Beast as a child and she would watch it over and over again,” he continued, referring to the 1991 animated film. “She feels that that, and especially Belle’s love of the books is part of what made her into a young feminist. And now, she as that person gets to do that for another generation. That, to me, is very cool.”
The feeling is very, very mutual! And for more from Condon, check out the Director’s Extended Edition of Dreamgirls, which is available now.
