‘Beauty and the Beast’ Prequel Series With Josh Gad, Luke Evans in Development at Disney Plus

By Joe Otterson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Luke Evans and Josh Gad are set to reprise their roles from 2017’s “” for a prequel series at Disney Plus, Variety has confirmed.

Evans will star as Gaston with Gad returning as LeFou. The untitled project, which is currently in early development, would be a musical like the film with Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz set to co-write and serve as showrunners. Gad would also serve as co-writer on the project, with he, Horowitz, and Kitsis also executive producing. ABC Signature Studios, where Horowitz and Kitsis are under an overall deal, would produce.

Horowtiz, Kitsis, and Gad had previously collaborated on a planned Muppets scripted series at , but that project was scrapped late last year after Disney announced at D23 in August that they were moving forward on a short-form unscripted Muppets series titled “Muppets Now.”

Horowitz and Kitsis are no strangers to the Disney-verse themselves. The pair previously created and ran the popular ABC series “Once Upon a Time,” which featured a wide range of fairy tale and Disney characters, including Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” and others like Snow White, Captain Hook, Jiminy Cricket, and Prince Charming.

“Beauty and the Beast” was released in March 2017 with Emma Waton and Dan Stevens in the lead roles. Neither of them is currently attached to the new Disney Plus project. The film opened to mostly positive reviews from critics, holding a 71% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was also a box office success, grossing over $1.2 billion worldwide on a reported budget of $160 million.

The Hollywood Reporter first broke the development news.

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