Luke Evans is in negotiations to play Gaston in Disney’s live-action version of “Beauty and the Beast,” according to Variety. Audiences may know Evans best as Bard the Bowman in Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” and he’s also appeared in “Dracula Untold” and “Fast and Furious 6.”
Based on Disney’s hit animated film of the same name, “Beauty and the Beast” has already cast its leading lady, Emma Watson as bookish Belle. No casting announcements about Beast have been made, but it will likely be an actor with a lot of facial hair. Bill Condon is directing with music by Alan Menken. Menken composed the music for the original film with the late Howard Ashman.
Will Evans do the part of Gaston justice? Where’s the swell cleft in his chin? Will he eat five dozen eggs, so he’s roughly the size of a barge? Certainly working in his favor is Evans’ musical theater experience. He has appeared in “Miss Saigon,” “Avenue Q,” and “Rent.”
Gaston is one of Disney’s more interesting villains. He’s vain, egotistical, and chauvinistic, but amazingly his true villainy doesn’t emerge until his plans to marry Belle are thwarted.
“Beauty and the Beast” is scheduled to hit theaters in 2016, with production beginning later this year.