It’s a tale as old as well-timed social media campaigns and online digital content – just a day after debuting the first full trailer for the new Beauty & the Beast live action film, set for release on St Patrick’s Day 2017, it breaks records as the biggest online trailer ever.
In just 24 hours, the trailer received 127.6m views, with the Emma Watson-starring film trending across all social media websites. The film’s star’s online presence was instrumental in pushing the trailer into the record books, with 27m views of the trailer coming from Watson’s Facebook profile alone.
Beauty & the Beast snatched the record held by Fifty Shades Darker since September, with the top five rounded out by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Captain America: Civil War, and the Beauty & the Beast teaser, which was released in May.
The film, co-starring Dan Stevens, Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen, is the latest in Disney’s new drive to remake its classic animated films into CGI-filled live-action features. Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Pete’s Dragon have all been updated for modern audiences, with Beauty & the Beast set to be followed by a remake of Mulan.
While only a small amount of footage has surfaced showing what can be expected from the Beauty & the Beast remake, it is clear that Disney is looking to match the tone and style of the 1991 original, the first animated film to ever be nominated for ‘Best Picture’ at the Academy Awards. A new cut of the trailer, showing how the animated film influenced it, reveals just how similar the two are:
