Beauty and the Beast has been a popular musical for decades. It was an Oscar-nominated animated film before becoming a Broadway show that has been performed all over the world. However, there is one place where it has never been performed, until now. Late night host James Corden has brought the award-winning musical to a crosswalk outside of CBS, and he brought a few of the new film's cast members to help them out.
Josh Gad, Dan Stevens, and Luke Evans all appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden to take part in his somewhat regular Crosswalk: The Musical performance. They rehearsed in the parking lot before taking their show, literally, on the road. Each member of the film's cast reprised their role from the film, so we got to see Luke Evans and Josh Gad sing together as Gaston and Le Fou. Dan Stevens got off a little easy as all he had to do was dance across the crosswalk during the title track performance. Of course, as Emma Watson was apparently unavailable, her understudy, James Corden, took on the role of Belle. Josh Gad also did double duty taking over the role of Lumiere from Ewan McGregor. All things considered, his performance was top notch.
This isn't the first time that James Corden has brought a Disney musical to the crosswalk. Previously, the show has given a performance of The Lion King. They've also done musical classics like The Phantom of the Opera and Grease. The performance focuses exclusively on the musical numbers and only a few seconds of them. Basically, each song only lasts for as long as the crosswalk sign is on. Once it shifts to "Don't Walk" it's a race back to the sidewalk in order to avoid being run over. The audience consists of people sitting in their cars, mostly wondering what the hell it is they're looking at.
While this may not give audiences the absolute best idea what a live-action Beauty and the Beast is going to look like, the costumes are much nicer in the movie for a start, It does show some of the stars of the film having a fun time, which one assumes they did while making the movie as well. The songs aren't even all that bad. Most everybody is a solid singer. James Corden was in Into the Woods so he's got some experience with musicals as well. While a song like "Belle" wasn't really designed for him, he does a good enough job with it, though he's obviously playing it for laughs as well.
Preview screenings for Beauty and the Beast start this evening with wide release officially happening tomorrow.
