Now ABC Is Working on Beauty and the Beast

ABC, which is already galloping into Fairyland with its upcoming Once Upon a Time, has now purchased a new take on the Beauty and the Beast legend the first circulated in 18th-century France and that has been a source of such huge success for ABC's parent company, Disney, through its 1991 animated feature and the subsequent Broadway adaptation.

What's interesting is that this version is being shaped by Jonathan E. Steinberg, the writer-producer who co-created both Jericho and the recent version of Human Target on Fox--two shows that did not exactly have a storybook tone. Also involved are director Gary Fleder and producer Mary Beth Basile, who worked together on both Life Unexpected and October Road.

As with most centuries-old fairy tales, the actual story of La Belle et la Bete is pretty dark: Belle has to stay with the Beast because of her father's indebtedness to him, and the Beast spends his time asking Belle to marry him, every night, night after night. So perhaps a treatment from the guy who helped create the postapocalyptic nightmares of Jericho might actually be appropriate.

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