A live-action Beauty and the Beast prequel series is in development at Disney+, The Hollywood Reporter reports. Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, the creators of ABC’s series Once Upon a Time, will produce the series. Josh Gad and Luke Evans are confirmed to play LeFou and Gaston, respectively. The series will act as an origin story for these two characters.
The six-episode limited series, set years before the time period of Beauty and the Beast, is currently untitled. Kitsis, Horowitz and Gad will serve as showrunners, writers and executive producers. Evans will join them as an executive producer.
Before this project, Kitsis and Horowitz worked with Gad on Disney+’s now-scrapped Muppets Live Another Day series. The three men began discussing the Beauty and the Beast prequel soon after the Muppets project was canceled.
The prequel series will be a musical event, and longtime Disney film composer and songwriter Alan Menken is in talks to join. This has not yet been confirmed, as the project is still in its early stages of development. Disney+ and ABC declined to comment.
Beauty and the Beast is not the first of Disney’s intellectual property to receive a TV series spinoff on Disney+. The streaming service’s original programming includes The Mandalorian and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which are spinoffs of Star Wars and High School Musical, respectively. Disney+ also plans to release numerous Marvel series, including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki.
The release date for the Beauty and the Beast prequel series is currently unknown.