Watch 57 Seconds of the Opening Song From ‘Beauty and the Beast’ About How Weird Belle Is
Disney has really put their marketing for the upcoming Beauty and the Beast on steroids lately, giving us all-too-short glimpses of some really iconic scenes. First it was Josh Gad and Luke Evans in a few seconds of (the best song) “Gaston” on Good Morning America. Now it’s almost a full minute(!) of the opening number “Belle,” that serves as a great introduction to our heroine and an opportunity for everyone else in the town to air their grievances about her.
It starts off more or less the same as the cartoon, with a few townspeople yelling “Bonjour!” at each other through their open windows. Then we Emma Watson’s Belle, strolling through the provincial town (don’t play the “provincial town” drinking game with this song, you’ll die) and — wait, did she just steal that bread? What qualifies for currency in this time period?
The song has been updated a bit from the original, with an entirely new interaction between Belle and a Monsieur Jean in which she all but name-drops Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Belle has also been updated, although you don’t see it here: She’s been given her father’s penchant for inventing weird gadgets that he had in the original. Definitely a better reason for the other townspeople to think she’s strange than her just reading books. The clip stops before we get to the bookshop itself, or Gaston’s part, but this gives us a nice overview of what to expect in the movie: bright colors, opulent, baroque scenery, and some really intricate costumes.
Beauty and the Beast hits theaters March 17.