A Live-Action Gaston Movie Is on the Way I Guess

I dunno, man. We’re heading toward the end of the year in these parts. I’m a (lucky) father to twin four-year-olds, so I don’t really get much time to relax. My weekends off from my normal jobs still involve doing my other one (being a dad). Regardless, I’m trying to take it easy over the next couple of weeks. I want to hit a point where it feels like I’m just coasting, you know? You’ll still see me handling all of my additional duties, but there will be signs that I’m not firing on all cylinders.

For instance, let’s say, apropos of nothing, I just pitch you a movie. It ain’t your traditional motion picture, no way, no how. In this one, in which I am purely snotting out my nose, we’re going to take the bad guy from an established movie, one that is not only beloved but also massively influential, and we’re going to make that guy the focus. Huh?! Sounds pretty radical, right?! No? Well, it’s the end of the year, and I don’t know what you want from me or, for that matter, the executives of Disney.

You know how Wicked managed to be a humongous hit? Hell, even its sequel made a decent splash with critics and fans, despite being made up of the show’s least interesting parts. Well, in a move that can only be described as riding coattails, Disney will be making a film about one of its famed villains. It won’t be the first time, nor will it be the last, but the timing of this announcement feels very much like someone needing to prove their worth while also trying to get cozy on the couch with some eggnog.

Gaston, the evil sexist from Beauty & the Beast, will be getting his own live-action movie for reasons that are not clear in the slightest. There aren’t even any details about what kind of movie it will be. We just know that Disney plans to make it, and that’s been in development long enough to have at least one previous writing team attached. It’s not clear if this will spin off from the 2017 live-action Beauty & the Beast, but I doubt it.

The appeal of this idea? I’m genuinely uncertain. While I’d guess Wicked’s success inspired them to greenlight a bad guy movie, presenting Gaston as the misunderstood hero of the story would be an incredible tightrope act to walk. It’s possible! But it would require a level of subversion and satire that I don’t think Disney is capable of putting out. They might try, but it seems highly unlikely.

Instead, we’ll probably see some story about Gaston being good before, but then turning bad. Maybe he went toe to toe with a beast in his past or something. I’m honestly already putting too much thought into this. It could easily end up being something that falls to the wayside. That said, there’s also a very good chance that an executive who thought they could coast through the end of the month will return to work in January and find a movie they pitched as a placeholder already has a release date.