Coming Soon: Battle of the Beasts

So last week we told you that the CW is going ahead with the pilot for its reboot of the CBS Beauty and the Beast series from the Eighties—a project we first heard about in September, a week after news of an ABC-sponsored Beauty and the Beast project rooted in the original French fairy tale.

Well, the three-legged race continues, as ABC has now announced that it's greenlit its Beast pilot, a week after the CW greenlit theirs.

This drama is being described as a "period/fantastical reimagining of the classic fairy tale set in a mythical, dangerous world wherein a beautiful and tough Princess discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast." The pilot is from Jonathan E. Steinberg, who co-created the Human Target reboot and Jericho.

What's the difference between the two? The CW's version is expected to be more steamy and youth-oriented, geared toward a Secret Circle or Vampire Diaries-type audience—though I suspect this angle of the CW project has been exaggerated thanks to the production company's previous credits. The impetus for the ABC project is obviously Once Upon a Time, but there's also an opportunity here to go darker, in a direction more akin to Grimm. (Though it's the CW project that's going to be explicitly a police procedural like Grimm).

Expect more tandem reports on the twin Beast projects in coming months. I wonder if they'll refer sneeringly to each other, the way Vampire Diaries sneered at the younger Twilight franchise in early episodes? Man, what would you pay to see a CW Beast/ABC Beast cage match?

Tags: Beauty and the Beast, Jonathan E. Steinberg, Ron Koslow Follow me on Twitter  |  Follow me on Facebook