Whatever happened to truth in advertising?
‘Beauty and the Beast’ EPs Defend Handsome Lead, Tout Linda Hamilton Approval – by Michael O’Connell
Technically rebooting the 1987 series, the CW drama’s creative team try to explain the lack of beastliness and draw comparisons to “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
Meeting with reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, the team behind the CW’s Beauty and the Beast reboot had to answer to one very big question: Where’s the beast?
Jay Ryan, who plays Vincent Keller/Beast, is rarely seen in the pilot sporting anything more offensive than a scar on his right cheek. EPs Sherri Cooperand Jennifer Levin chalked it up to going for something more subtle.
“Most of the beasts in our lives don’t look like actual beasts,” said Cooper. “He’s a ticking time bomb.”
Ryan offered a more understandable explanation — albeit one that prompted another line of questioning.
“It’s actually more like the Jekyll and Hyde, like two people,” said Ryan. “The beast is more like a serial killer and Vince is trying to suppress him. You don’t get a lot of that in the pilot, but there will be more of that as the series goes.”
So why Beauty and the Beast and not Jekyll and Hyde? Cooper and Levin were very big fans of the 1987 original starring Linda Hamilton and a grizzly Ron Perlman. Those two characters, names and all, motivated for the reboot.
Sorry, EPs, but we’re calling “Bullshit!” No matter how you try to spin it, this ain’t BEAUTY AND THE BEAST or DOCTOR JEKYLL. Your title(s) and your P.R. are insulting in the extreme. Here’s hoping your writing is more than just a tad more believable.
Or, as our ole buddy the Toothless Mountain Man might say, “That boy sure is purty. Beast or no beast, I’m a’gonna make him squeal like a pig.”