Bill Condon

It’s alive… sorta. After delaying ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ and pulling the plug on their Dark Universe, the next Universal monster reboot may happening.

Tom Cruise’s ‘The Mummy’ was expected to launch Universal’s new Dark Monster-verse, but now it looks like the multi-franchise universe may be dead entirely.

From Wonder Woman to one of the most famous monsters in movie history? It might happen.

The next film in the Dark Universe of Universal Monsters has been “paused” while its creators work on its script.

There’s no easy way to say this, but if you saw Beauty and the Beast in theaters, you were ROBBED. All week long Disney has been dropping additional content from the hit live-action remake online to promote the upcoming Blu-ray release, including some pretty darn cute behind-the-scenes footage. But there is nothing cute about the latest clip, in which director Bill Condon reveals a scene that was unjustly deleted from the film. That sneaky dude has been holding out on us.

Universal is going dark.

Having successfully shepherded the Emma Watson-led Beauty and the Beast remake to a billion-dollar worldwide gross, Bill Condon now has the world in his palm. An Academy Award winner with blockbuster bona fides, he’s pretty much free to take whatever project he’d like. Today brings news of what his next big endeavor might be, and it looks like he’s going to make a lateral move to stick with big budget studio work. Condon chronicled the life of British filmmaker James Whale with the celebrated Of Gods and Monsters, now he’s poised to tackle Whale’s work head-on.

Aah, remember just three weeks ago when we all thought Disney was about to introduce the studio’s first openly gay character? Director Bill Condon said his live-action Beauty and the Beast remake would feature a character having an “exclusively gay moment,” and described Josh Gad‘s LeFou as someone who both wants to be Gaston (Luke Evans), and kiss Gaston. Then critics saw the movie and found no openly gay character in sight. The investigation continues into what exactly an “exclusively gay moment” is – if anyone has figured it out, please let me know – but it’s certainly not whatever happened at the end of Beauty and the Beast.

One of the things that’s different about the new Beauty and the Beast — other than the fact that it’s live-action — is that it’s 45 minutes longer than the original animated movie. There are a few new additions: expanded characters, three completely new songs, and some extended flashbacks. One of these flashbacks is an answer to one mystery die-hard Beauty and the Beast fans have been asking since 1991: What happened to Belle’s mother?

At first, Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast might not look all that different from the 1991 original. Emma Watson‘s Belle shares a dance with the Beast (Dan Stevens) in her iconic yellow gown, the servants are as charming as ever, and the story is relatively the same. But there are some new flourishes that distinguish the remake from the classic many of us grew up with.