Disney’s long-running love affair with its own back catalogue is continuing, with reports that the studio is developing a live-action film centred on Gaston, the villain from Beauty and the Beast.
The project is said to be in early development, but news of its existence has already prompted a fierce backlash from fans, who question both the choice of character and the broader creative direction of Disney’s remakes.
According to Deadline, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings writer Dave Callaham is attached to write the screenplay, with Michelle Rejwan producing.
Beyond the suggestion that the tone will be ‘swashbuckling,’ plot details remain under wraps.
What is clear is that this new film is not connected to the now-cancelled Gaston–LeFou Disney+ prequel series, which would have seen Evans and Josh Gad reprise their roles.
Gaston first strutted onto screens in Disney’s 1991 animated adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, based on an 18th-century French fairy tale.
In the original film, Belle is a curious, book-loving young woman who becomes trapped in the castle of a prince cursed to live as a Beast, and gradually learns to see past his monstrous exterior.
Gaston, meanwhile, is the embodiment of small-town entitlement and becomes increasingly violent after Belle rejects his marriage proposal.
Voiced by Richard White, Gaston was notable for being less a misunderstood villain than a satirical portrait of toxic masculinity before the phrase entered everyday language.
His obsession with Belle and his need to dominate the Beast made him a rare Disney antagonist with no magic, no tragic curse, and no redemption arc.
The character returned in Disney’s 2017 live-action Beauty and the Beast, played by Luke Evans opposite Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast.
Do you like the idea of a live-action Gaston movie?
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Yes, as you see he's got biceps to spare
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No, no-one's slick as the original Gaston
That film proved to be a colossal commercial success, earning more than $1.26bn worldwide and securing two Oscar nominations in 2018 for costume design and production design.
Disney’s modern fixation on live-action remakes can be traced back to 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, which became a billion-dollar global phenomenon and changed Disney’s trajectory.
Ever since 2010’s Alice in Wonderland yielded over $1 billion worldwide, the studio has been making live-action remakes in an endless stream.
We’ve seen critical hits like Cinderella in 2015, which grossed about $543 million (£430m) globally, and major box office wins like The Jungle Book in 2016, which earned nearly $967 million (£764 m) worldwide. Even massive releases such as The Lion King in 2019 exceeded expectations, grossing about $1.66 billion (£1.31b) worldwide.
There have also been underperformers among the lot. Dumbo (2019), for instance, only managed about $115 million in the U.S. (~£91 m) on a production widely regarded as costly, while other entries like Snow White (2025) opened to around $43 million domestically (~£34 m) and are still trying to find their footing.
But the reaction to the news about Gaston suggests that many fans are finally over the trend. For some, the announcement has been seen as another example of Disney stretching familiar intellectual property to its limits rather than offering original stories.
Reaction online was pretty scathing, with @DynamoSuperX writing: ‘another pointless live-action cashgrab and somehow I’m more irritated at the fact they picked this mf of all disney villains. mothel gothel, I can understand. hades, sure. but who tf pulling up to see gaston?! 😭’
Others were even blunter. @TrialXtreme posted: ‘Literally noone asked for this.’ @digital_tomato echoed the sentiment, writing: ‘Gaston doesn’t need a movie! Make new stories Disney!’
Some criticism focused less on the idea of a villain spin-off and more on the specific choice of Gaston.
@Ian_Fisch argued: ‘There are Disney villains that probably had interesting backstories: Jafar or Claude Frollo. They should do one of those instead’.
Whether Disney leans into that darkness or attempts to soften Gaston’s edges will likely determine how the project is ultimately received.
But for now, it’s clear that audiences continue to ask whether nostalgia alone is enough to sustain the studio’s future.
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