Beauty And The Beast Has Topped Star Wars In One Important Poll

Yesterday, Disney released the first teaser trailer for their live action Beauty and the Beast remake. Other than a shot of Emma Watson’s Belle in the background, the preview didn’t provide any clear looks at the characters, but it did give a taste of the retelling’s castle setting and samplings of Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen’s voice work as Lumiere and Cogsworth, respectively. It was expected that a lot of people would see the trailer, but this first look is so popular that it has already surpassed Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the number of trailer views in its first 24 hours.

At the time of this writing, the first Beauty and the Beast trailer has gather nearly 92 million viewers across the web, which, according to The Hollywood Reporter, beats the record Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ second teaser trailer left with 88 million views. Captain America: Civil War now takes third place with 61 million views, the first Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser followed with 55 million views and Avengers: Age of Ultron ranks fifth later with 34 million views. You’ll notice that these other ones are Disney movies as well, proving that the House of Mouse is reigning supreme with their trailers. The Beauty and the Beast teaser first premiered during Good Morning America, and was released online soon after.

Following in the footsteps of Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book and more, Beauty and the Beast is adapting the 1991 animated movie for live action, with today’s movie making technology finally allowing for the story’s walking and talking furniture to be realistically created. As mentioned earlier, the teaser didn't show any of the characters other than Belle, but it certainly was successful in harkening back to Disney’s original go at the classic fairy tale, from the gloomy castle to the portrait of the Beast before he turned into his monstrous self. The next trailer will presumably arrive later this year (I’m guessing when fall begins), and it’s there that we’ll probably get our first looks at the main characters. For now, the stats show that more folks were keen on seeing the remake’s teaser in its first day than they were with one of the previews for the last adventure in a galaxy far, far away.

Directed by Bill Condon, the live action Beauty and the Beast movie is also retaining its musical roots by having Alan Mencken return to compose music both from the animated movie and new songs co-written with Tim Rice. In addition to Emma Watson, Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen in their previously mentioned roles, the movie’s cast includes Luke Evans as Gaston, Kevin Kline as Maurice, Josh Gad as LeFou, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Babette and Stanley Tucci as Cadenza.

Beauty and the Beast will be released in theaters on March 17, 2017.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.