First off let me say a few things aside from the article. I know that this is in no way comic book related. I’ll give you that. However, if you can name me another site that will allow me to showcase my film ideas in the way that I can here then do so. This is my outlet for feedback, so bare with me and my occasional Fan Fiction that isn’t comic book related. I should also point out that if any of you came recognize me as “AxlKomix,” I’ve changed my name to “KCatJr.” I just want to clear that up so I don’t look like a new user. I’ve used this site before and I’m well aware of the unspoken rules and courtesies present. Thank you for taking time out of viewing the overflowing Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man fan casts to read this fairytale bullshit.
Story:
The story is set in the 19th century in a small, country town on the British Isles. Before we can tell the story of the beauty and the beast, we must first tell the story of the liberal and the conservative. The liberal being Diana Belle, a young, lovely woman with fantastic ambitions, and the conservative being Alexander Christopher, a somewhat wealthy, handsome young man. Diana’s father, Jonathan, is a writer that has had little of his work published or read. Thus, Diana is almost forced into marrying Alexander for hope to save her family from poverty. It is said as “almost forced” because Diana has little reluctance since she has some feeling for the man she is to marry.
Where Diana and Alexander conflict is their plans for the future. Diana is an independent woman with ambitions and dreams; she wants to travel the world and learn all she can from it. Alexander, however, wants nothing more than to raise a large family in the small town in which the two grew up. This all comes to a head when, on the day that they are to be wed, Diana flees the town and runs into the forest. Diana struggles with herself at this point, for she has truly abandoned her father and most likely broken the heart of a man that she did have some feelings for.
Diana soon becomes lost in the vast forest. As rain begins to fall and cold winds start to blow, Diana runs through the trees in search of shelter. In the distance, lighting illuminates a castle on a cliff. Diana runs to the castle and, without knocking, bursts through the doors, thinking the place abandoned in its horrid condition. Diana stops for a moment to catch her breath and then makes her way into one of the rooms. Shadows begin to move through the minimal light, all making their way towards the girl. Noticing some wood in a fireplace, Diana lights a fire to warm herself. As soon as she lights the fire, a gang of ghastly looking individuals is revealed to be surrounding her.
Diana is frightened beyond words, but one of the individuals above the others steps out to calm her. This individual is a very thin man dressed as a servant (as many of the monstrous individuals are) and has a wig and comedy theater mask that hide his face. He introduces himself as Gerard and offers Diana some tea. Diana is still frightened. Gerard sends the others away and tells Diana that she is welcome to stay for the night and that he will bring her tea to her shortly. Diana is left alone while Gerard goes off for the tea.
As she is trying to calm herself and get warm by the fire, a door is slammed open in the distance and a roar echoes through the castle. Diana jumps to her feet and the fire is blown out by a sudden gust of wind. Gerard quickly returns and begs Diana flee the castle, telling her that his master had arrived home from his hunt earlier than expected. Before Diana or Gerard can exit the room, a deer carcass is thrown to the floor and an enormous shadow falls over them.
A monstrous beast stands at the door of the room. The beast questions Gerard about the presence of the stranger and scolds him for allowing her in. Gerard tries to reason as Diana cowers on the floor, but the beast will hear none of it. The beast looks shamefully at the dead deer on the floor, then, forgetting his shame just as quickly as it had occurred, grabs Diana by the arm. The beast drags Diana to the highest tower of the castle and throws her in an empty room. Diana spends the night weeping alone in the tower.
The next morning, Gerard has brought some food for Diana. Diana actually converses with the servant this time, asking him about the castle. Gerard doesn’t reveal much other than that all of the servants in the castle are cursed. Diana asks Gerard what his curse is and he removes his mask and wig, revealing that his head is nothing more than a skull. As Diana shrinks in fear, Gerard explains that his whole body is nothing more than the skeleton of the man he once was, replacing his mask and wig. Gerard also asks Diana to not fear the other servants, for they are all kind souls, and to be patient with his master. Diana agrees to be kind to the servants, but shows little interest in showing the beast forgiveness.
Over a months time Diana remains a prisoner in the tower, every night the beast climbing the steps to watch her as she sleeps. After that length of time, the beast comes into Diana’s room one morning and asks if she would join him for breakfast. Diana is reluctant, but the encouraging nod of the accompanying Gerard convinces her that all will be well. Diana and the beast eat breakfast together in silence. Diana is provided with flatware and silverware, but the beast eats with his hands like an animal. After finishing, Gerard asks his master if he would like him to “escort the lady back to the tower.” The beast declines and tells his servant to take Diana to one of the rooms on the second floor. Diana and Gerard are both confused and surprised by this, but the beast becomes frustrated when his demands are questioned.
Diana’s new room is well furnished with a bed and bureau and wardrobe. The rest of the day is spent in this room by the girl as she questions the beast’s sudden change of heart. The next day, Diana is waited on by many more servants than just Gerard. Bernice (a plump woman with tusks and hooves for feet), Samuel (a hunched-over young man with short, thin legs and large arms that drag the ground), and Francisco (a man that is made of wood) all become the personal servants of Diana in her new room. Over the next few days, Diana begins to befriend her new servants and explore the castle freely. One place that Gerard has told Diana that she is forbidden to enter is the ballroom in which the beast keeps his personal quarters.
After some time of dining alone in her room, Diana is once again invited to join the beast for a meal, this time in the evening. The beast breaks his silence this time, asking Diana if she like her new room, even though she’s been staying in it for a few weeks by this point. Diana says that she’s “enjoying it much more than the tower.” The beast looks upset at the comment at first, but then chuckles quietly. The beast eats nothing at this meal, constantly glancing down nervously at the eating utensils that have been provided for him. The beast is trying to become more human again to impress this girl, though he has yet to put on anymore clothing than the ragged pants he wears. The two remain silent for another long period. “What’s your name?” Diana asks, breaking the silence. The beast, without warning, throws his plate from the table and storms out of the room. Gerard suggests Diana take her dinner to her room and finish there, while he pursues his master.
Finding the beast sitting alone in the castle’s garden, Gerard stops and stands a considerable length behind him. Gerard speaks to inspire his master. Little is still revealed about what inner turmoil the beast is suffering, but Gerard suggests that he must speak to the girl if he is to express his true feelings. The next morning Diana awakens to the sound of her door opening, expecting Bernice to have brought her breakfast. Instead, she finds that the beast has brought her breakfast and that he wishes to join her. Diana is shocked enough by this sudden display of humanity, but what’s more shocking is that the beast has put on a shirt (though, the shirt is just as ragged as his pants). The beast is invited in and the two sit down at a table by a large window in the room. “My name was once James Draven,” the beast says quietly, breaking another awkward silence. Diana smiles and completes their first official introduction by giving her name also.
After this, being the first real conversation the two share, Diana and James start to spend more and more time together. Keeping things brief, the two go on to become evermore closer, James becoming more and more human as his love for Diana grows and his beastly rage dissolves. On one night, when he feels that he can finally trust her, James allows Diana into the ballroom. “This is where it all happened,” James tells her, as Diana takes in the ghastly surroundings. James tells her the story of his curse…
It was on a cold, stormy night, not unlike the one that brought Diana to the castle, that James was holding a party in the ballroom. It was nothing more than a simple party with him and his servants to celebrate his 18th birthday. When there came a knock at the door, Gerard had answered and let a poor, old, ugly woman in from the cold. When he saw her horrifying appearance, James demanded the old woman be tossed back out into the rain. The woman begged James not to do so, but, at his more persistent orders, his servants grasped her by the arms and began to drag her out. The old woman then suddenly began to change form. Transforming into a young, beautiful woman, the unwelcome guest cast a cold glare on James. Taking some sand from the pocket of her cloak and blowing it in James’s face, the woman put a curse on the whole castle. James was transformed into a monstrous beast and, to further his regret, all of his servants were transformed into monstrous beings as well…
Diana expresses her pity to James’s situation. James thanks her for her understanding and sends her away. What James did not tell Diana is the meaning of the large hourglass in the center of the ballroom. If James cannot earn the love of another by the time the last grain of sand has fallen into the bottom of the hourglass, then he will remain a beast forever (this is implied to the audience and shouldn’t need to be told in the story).
Eventually, just as the love of the two is coming to a head, Alexander will discover the castle. Throughout the story scenes will have jumped back to Alexander many times, showing him with a party searching for the bride that they thought had been kidnapped. In those moments, Alexander will appear to become more and more selfish and his true feelings for Diana as his property instead of as his love will begin to surface. Therefore, by the time Alexander arrives at the castle the audience will not be comfortable with him any more. Alexander is the last of the search party, all of the others having given up for thinking the worst.
When he first learns that Alexander has entered his castle, James’s first instinct is to have him killed. However, when he sees Alexander seize Diana and kiss her passionately (even though her heart isn’t quite in it), he comes to a conclusion: “she will be better off with him.” James rushes down to the Diana and, in a heated rage, tears her away from Alexander. Alexander falls to the ground in fear. James growls out the word “leave” and then stomps away. Diana tells Alexander that he should leave immediately, but James turns around and shouts “both of you” and rushes off in a rage. Gerard, having come to see what the commotion was about, drops his head in sorrow as he repeats “You are free now, Miss; perhaps it is better that you leave.” Diana isn’t sure that she wants this freedom, but she must take it no doubt and leaves with Alexander. When she leaves, James tears off all of his clothing and destroys the kitchen, as well as anything else in the castle that would attach him to his former humanity.
When Diana is brought back to the town, she sees that she must go through with the planned wedding. The wedding must be arranged once again, so a week or so must go by before Diana and Alexander are wed. In that time, a farmer’s flock of sheep is killed by some carnivorous animal. After having heard Diana’s stories about how the beast used to bring back animal carcasses and eat them, Alexander jumps to the conclusion that the beast killed the farmer’s flock. Diana protests the argument, but Alexander has thoroughly convinced everyone in the town that the beast must be killed (this springs from a jealously of Diana’s obvious-yet-confused feeling towards the beast and an actual fear that the beast may have killed the flock).
Alexander leads an angry mob to the castle, while Diana has been locked in her room. Diana breaks out of her room, but she must fight off a few of the women from town before she can run after the mob. When Alexander and the mob reach the castle, they are met with opposition by the servants, but James remains locked away in the ballroom destroying everything in sight. Alexander breaks through the defenses of the deformed castle servants and goes off in search of the beast. James is already in a rage when Alexander kicks the ballroom door open, so he charges at the intruder. In fear, Alexander flees through the castle, eventually making his way outside into the garden where he hides amongst the labyrinth of hedges.
By this time, Diana has made it to the castle where the servants have driven off the rest of the mob. Taking Gerard’s hand, Diana along with Bernice, Samuel, and Francisco run off in search of James. James eventually pounces from the shadows and pins Alexander to the ground, choking him. This is the scene that Diana falls upon. When James sees Diana, he regains his humanity and takes his hand off of Alexander’s throat. While James and Diana run towards each other, Alexander takes aim with a pistol. His eyes being blurry from being knocked to the ground, Alexander misses the beast and hits Diana.
James turns around quickly and charges at Alexander. James takes one swipe with his claws across Alexander’s chest, but Alexander had managed to pull a knife on which the beast lands. The knife pierces James heart and both men fall to the ground. Alexander dies immediately, but James is still hanging by a thread. As Gerard rushes to Diana, he sees that the gunshot merely grazed her forehead and it was the shock of it that caused her to fall. After the skeleton helps her to her feet, Diana quickly notices James on the ground bleeding. Running to him and going to her knees beside him, the last words she hears him utter are “I love you.” James’s eyes shut and he stops breathing. Diana begins to cry and rests her head on his chest.
Cutting to the hourglass, the last grain of sand falls as many of the other servants look on in dread. Diana continues to cry and hold tightly onto James. When she finally says “I love you” herself, one by one the grains of sand in the hourglass slowly begin to glow. Once every grain is glowing, one by one they start to rise back up into the top of the hourglass and disappear, the rate at which they do so increasing every second.
Outside, James’s body is beginning to rise. His body starts to glow and the fur that covers him starts to change. The fur slowly begins to turn to sand and begins falling off of his body. As larger amounts of fur turn to sand and more sand falls to the ground, the more of what is underneath is revealed. Eventually, the light being emitted by James is so bright that we can no longer see any of him. His body eventually falls into the mound of sand on the ground and the light dies.
The hourglass, which had been glowing also, has grown dark again as well. All is silent as Diana and the servants look at the mound of sand that has taken the place of James’s body. After a long silence, the hand of a man erupts from the sand. Slowly, the rest of this man crawls out of the sand. After he is all of the way out, the man slowly gets to his feet. Turning to the onlookers, he has a confused look on his face. After looking down at his hands, a smile bursts across his face and then he begins to laugh. The laughter echoes through the whole castle.
When the laughter gets to the ballroom, the hourglass explodes with an even brighter light. Across the castle, all of the servants begin to go through a similar sand transformation and the castle itself is transforming with them. I’m going to save myself any more effort here and let it be said that Diana and James marry.
The idea with this movie isn’t to outdo the animated Disney film or to adapt it directly to live-action. This should stand alone as its own film, while at the same time taking influence from the Disney classic. The film will also be much darker and will likely have a PG-13 rating. The film will probably cater to fans of the animated film like me and Twilight buffs. All I want is to see this story updated with new technology and make use of the darker themes that were present in the Disney original but were not used.
Cast:
-Beast / James Draven-
Jared Padalecki
Padalecki isn’t ever an easy choice to make. That’s simply because a lot of people don’t like him. Personally, I don’t think he’s that bad of an actor. The guy’s problem is that he’s been stuck on television with all of the other shitty T.V. actors and hasn’t really been given a chance to mature. Many of Hollywood’s top actors started out on crappy T.V. shows and in horror films (Padalecki having done both), but grew better when landing a defining role or working with better actors and film makers. Padalecki would be great for this because he’s physically intimidating and he has a good range in his voice.
Emile Hirsch
Hirsch lacks one thing that Padalecki has over him: physicality. However, Hirsch is a tremendous actor and has proven himself time and time again. He too has a good range, not only in his voice but also in his delivery. Hirsch can play both sides of the beast’s personality. That will be the one thing that Padalecki would probably have trouble with.
Originally, I wanted to cast Johnny Depp in the role of the beast, but he would be too old for any girl suitable to play the beauty. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of hot women out there that are Depp’s age, but this story seems to work better with younger individuals in the central roles.
-Diana Belle-
Amanda Seyfried
Anna Kendrick
Diana is one of the central characters of this story. It would be easy to take the “Beauty” literally and try to find the most gorgeous girl out there. However, with the attention this character receives, the role needs someone who is beautiful as well as talented. Seyfried and Kendrick are both talented and they are both beautiful. Seyfried had her big showing in Chloe (in more ways than one), and Kendrick displayed great talent in Up in the Air.
-Alexander Christopher-
Andrew Garfield
When I cast characters, I should probably look for more in the actor than “he’s the same age as the chick.” However, that seems to be a good starting point because it helped me to fall onto Garfield. From what I’ve seen him in, Garfield seems to be a great performer and I hope to see him do well as Spider-Man in the near future. He seems to work for this role which is a character that isn’t necessarily a villain, but definitely isn’t a hero.
James Lafferty
Oh, the woes of teenage drama in which this lad found his beginnings. This former star of One Tree Hill started off on that show playing an asshole and then transformed into a good-hearted baby-maker. So, observing that, I think that he could play the reverse. With that kind of range, Lafferty would work well for this character.
Jamie Campbell Bower
When casting a film that I envision to be dark but with heart, the best place to look for actors for characters of that variety would be a Tim Burton film. This guy starred in Sweeney Todd as the love struck sailor that wanted nothing more than to win the heart of Joanna. Well, that’s kind of a part of the Alexander character and for that reason he could work for the role. Also, he’s so man-pretty that he works as the perfect opposite of the beast’s ugliness.
-Jonathan Belle-
Alan Rickman
The character of Jonathan Belle needs to be humorous and loving. Now, Rickman may not be the obvious choice for such a character since he’s been stuck as Snape in the Harry Potter universe for the last decade. However, if you look back to Dogma, Rickman does have a charming sense of humor about him. That’s exactly what this character needs and for that reason he is cast.
Patrick Stewart
Stewart certainly is the fatherly type, which is why he is one of the choices. However, Jonathan is a slightly depressed character that may need to be drunk at certain moments in the film and I can’t see Stewart being drunk. Drunk or not, the character will be in a half-witted state throughout the film as he sees his whole life as a failure. I’d like to see Stewart in this role, but I’m not entirely sure that it’s right for him.
Danny Devito
Why go anywhere else for the goofy father? Devito has that warmth about him, but also has a great sense of humor. Devito would probably suit this role best, which brings to question why I even bothered with any other choices. What will be hard with Devito is finding the right balance between seriousness and silliness.
-Gerard-
Ioan Gruffudd
Why the guy from FF? Because he’s got the look and he’s got the accent. Though, I guess his looks won’t matter since he would spend most of the film as a skeleton that wears a mask. Honestly, I can never be too sure why I cast certain people in certain roles. Sometimes certain people just feel right for certain roles and that’s the case here.
Geoffrey Rush
This choice is even more unanswered than the former. There’s no doubt that Rush is talented, but I can’t say for sure why, out of all of the actors out there in the world, I chose him for this role. Maybe it’s because I looked over at my DVD shelf and saw the Pirates of the Caribbean case…
David Bowie
Now, I do know why I chose this guy. Simply put, I love Bowie. In the few things that he’s acted in he’s played the roles well. In most recent memory, he played a great Nikola Tesla in The Prestige. This sort of bizarre character would probably draw Bowie more easily than Tesla did (Nolan had to give him a great amount of convincing), because he won’t just take any role. Bowie’s a musician first and an actor second, which makes me ask this: when is he going to put out another album?
-Bernice-
Kathy Bates
Bates was pretty easy to cast in this role. Bates is like everyone’s favorite grandmother rolled together with apple pie and sex… Too weird? Yeah, grandmother and sex should never show up in the same sentence. However, Bates is perfect for this role because Bernice needs to be a pleasant, motherly woman and Bates has played that role time and again.
Helena Bonham Carter
Here I am using Burton’s people again. If Bates is the warm, motherly woman, then Carter is the warm, motherly woman that’s younger, thinner, and a little eccentric. Carter can be considered because when Bernice changes back to her former self she may lose weight as well as her pig-like features. I’m not taking shots at Bates, but she’s not exactly thin. Carter could do the role just as much justice, though taken in a slightly different direction. Don’t believe me? Ask the dishes… I’m so lame (if you get that reference, so are you).
-Samuel-
Topher Grace
Clark Duke
-Francisco-
David Hyde Pierce
Alan Cumming
Sacha Baron Cohen
If I can be honest, I got tired of explaining myself. So, I’m going to let you make your own conclusions as to why I cast the people that I did as Samuel and Francisco. If it’s of that great of importance, than feel free to bitch in the comments section below, as I’m sure you will about Padalecki.