Don’t trust Alan Menken with your secrets.
The famed composer, who just joined the rarified group of EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) winners, accidentally revealed the title for the Disney+ Beauty and the Beast prequel series for which he’s composing the music. The series, which stars Luke Evans as Gaston and Josh Gad as LeFou, will be called Little Town, named after the opening line in Beauty and the Beast‘s catchy small-town song “Bonjour.”
After taking home a Daytime Emmy Award for his work on Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure, Menken became one of just 17 people to wear the EGOT crown. And in an interview with Variety about that accomplishment, he spoke about his upcoming projects and referred to the Beauty and the Beast prequel as “The Little Town.” Collider has since confirmed that the actual title is simply “Little Town” (drop the “the” – it’s cleaner), but thankfully, Menken is a certified Disney Legend, so he doesn’t have to worry about CEO Bob Chapek ordering a strike team to break into his house and murder him for slipping up and spilling the beans.
Let’s talk about that title for a second though. On first glance, Little Town seems, frankly, like an awful title for a Beauty and the Beast prequel – especially one in which we assume we’re going to see Gaston and LeFou fighting in the war that they returned from in the opening minutes of the 2017 live-action movie. But maybe there’s something deeper going on.
Director Bill Condon made headlines for saying that his movie version of Beauty and the Beast would have an “exclusively gay moment,” which turned out to be about two seconds of Josh Gad’s LeFou, who’s coded as gay in the film, dancing with one of Gaston’s henchmen, who earlier in the film was depicted as enjoying wearing women’s clothing.
Maybe this Disney+ series could give Gad (who’s also one of the writers) a chance to flesh out LeFou a little more, and possibly even explore other relationships that his character has had with men. Perhaps Little Town could be referring to the village’s small-minded attitude about those types of relationships, resulting in LeFou being a closeted character instead of open about his sexuality. I don’t know, folks – I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here, but without any plot details to lean on, this is one of the only reasons I can think of why they would choose this particular title.
The post ‘Little Town’: The Disney+ ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Prequel Series Gets a Title appeared first on /Film.
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