Beauty and the Beast is a 2017 American romantic fantasy musical film directed by Bill Condon and written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos. A Walt Disney Pictures and Mandeville Films co-production, the film is a live-action remake of Disney's 1991 animated film of the same name, itself an adaptation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's fairy tale. The film stars an ensemble cast that includes Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ian McKellen and Emma Thompson. In the film, Belle is taken prisoner by a fearsome Beast in his enchanted castle and she learns to look beyond his appearance while evading a narcissistic hunter who seeks to take Belle for himself. The film also diverges from the original source by including a gay character who pines after Gaston.