Following the release of the official ‘Beauty and the Beast’ trailer earlier this week, the Disney live action remake has already made the headlines with its first clip raking in the highest number of views in its first 24 hours.
According to Disney, the ‘Beauty and the Beast trailer garnered views from 127.6 million people during its first day of release.
Since the clip’s release on Monday, fans have had a more detailed look at Belle, played by Emma Watson. Out of the millions who watched the trailer, more than 29 million views were earned from Facebook alone, particularly 27 million of which come from the actress’ official page.
The hashtag #BeautyandTheBeast also turned into a global trend on Twitter and the trailer soared to the top of the trending video page of YouTube.
Watson also made an appearance on a Facebook Live session for the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ movie page, joining co-actors Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad as well as director Bill Condon.
Previous records for most-watched trailers were set by ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ with 114 million views and ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ with 112 million views.
The ‘Beauty and the Beast’ short teaser released in May also gained 91.8 million views, toppling over the ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ teaser, which had 88 million views.
The character that Watson plays in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ has always appealed to little girls, given that Belle is a smart lady who loves books and is brave enough to share her intellect regardless of the circumstances.
This time, the new live-action remake by Disney will put the spotlight on extra feminist details when it comes to Watson’s character. While the 1991 animated version saw Belle’s father Maurice as the inventor and Belle was shown spending most of her time reading, the upcoming movie has placed Belle in her father’s position.
"In the animated movie, it’s her father who is the inventor, and we actually co-opted that for Belle," Watson shared. "I was like, 'Well, there was never very much information or detail at the beginning of the story as to why Belle didn’t fit in, other than she liked books. Also what is she doing with her time?’"
In an image released by Entertainment Weekly, Belle and Maurice (Kevin Kline) can be seen sitting with each other at a worktable, suggesting that Belle is the inventor while her father is a maker of music boxes.
“So, we created a backstory for her, which was that she had invented a kind of washing machine, so that, instead of doing laundry, she could sit and use that time to read instead. So, yeah, we made Belle an inventor,” the actress added.
The film’s set decorator Katie Spencer further explained the concept of the image.
"Kevin Kline as Maurice, is making all these music boxes that have to tell the story of Belle not traveling," Spencer said. "She’s overprotected in a way, by her father, because she’s lost her mother. So, we’ve made all these music boxes that represent different countries of the world, so she can see what she’s missing."
The ‘Beauty and the Beast’ premiere date has been set on Mar. 17, 2017.
