document_title: Beauty and the Beast (2017 film)

question_text: who plays the beast on the new beauty and the beast

text: Beauty and the Beast (2017 film)

text: Plot[edit]

text: In Rococo-era France, an enchantress disguised as an old beggar woman arrives at a castle during a ball and offers the host, a coldhearted prince, a rose for shelter. When he refuses, she reveals her identity as an enchantress and transforms him into a beast and his servants into household objects, then erases the castle, the prince and his servants from the memories of their loved ones. She casts a spell on the rose and warns the prince that the curse will never lift unless he learns to love another, and earn their love in return, before the last petal falls.

text: Some years later, in the small town of Villeneuve, Belle, the book-loving daughter of a music box maker and artist Maurice, dreams of adventure and brushes off advances from Gaston, an arrogant former soldier. On his way to a convention and lost in the forest, Belle's father Maurice seeks refuge in the Beast's castle, but the Beast imprisons him for stealing a rose from his garden as a birthday gift to Belle. When Maurice's horse returns without him, Belle ventures out in search for him, and finds him locked in the castle dungeon. The Beast agrees to let her take Maurice's place.

text: Belle befriends the castle's servants, who invite her to a spectacular dinner. When she wanders into the forbidden west wing and finds the rose, the Beast, enraged, scares her into the woods. She is ambushed by a pack of wolves, but the Beast rescues her, and is injured in the process. As Belle nurses his wounds, a friendship develops between them. The Beast shows Belle a gift from the enchantress, a book that transports readers wherever they want. Belle uses it to visit her childhood home in Paris, where she discovers a plague doctor mask and realizes that she and her father were forced to leave her mother's deathbed when her mother succumbed to the plague.

text: In Villeneuve, Gaston sees rescuing Belle as an opportunity to win her hand in marriage, and agrees to help Maurice. When Maurice learns of his ulterior motive and rejects him, Gaston abandons him to be eaten by the wolves. Maurice is rescued by the hermit Agathe, but when he tells the townsfolk of Gaston's crime but is unable to provide solid evidence, Gaston convinces them to send Maurice to an insane asylum.

text: After sharing a romantic dance with the Beast, Belle discovers her father's predicament using a magic mirror. The Beast releases her to save Maurice, giving her the mirror to remember him with. At Villeneuve, Belle proves Maurice's sanity by revealing the Beast in the mirror to the townsfolk. Realizing that Belle loves the Beast, Gaston claims she has been charmed by dark magic, and has her thrown into the asylum carriage with her father. He rallies the villagers to follow him to the castle to slay the Beast before he curses the whole village. Maurice and Belle escape, and Belle rushes back to the castle.

text: During the battle, Gaston abandons his companion LeFou, who then sides with the servants to fend off the villagers. Gaston attacks the Beast in his tower, who is too depressed to fight back, but regains his spirit upon seeing Belle return. He overpowers Gaston, but spares his life before reuniting with Belle. However, Gaston fatally shoots the Beast from a bridge, but it collapses when the castle crumbles, and he falls to his death. The Beast dies as the last petal falls, and the servants become inanimate. When Belle tearfully professes her love to him, Agathe reveals herself as the enchantress and undoes the curse, repairing the crumbling castle, and restoring the Beast's and servants' human forms and the villagers' memories. The Prince and Belle host a ball for the kingdom, where they dance happily.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Emma Watson as Belle, a young benevolent bibliophile woman who develops feelings for the Beast and begins to see the humanity within him.

Daisy Duczmal portrays an infant Belle.

Dan Stevens as Beast, a cold-hearted prince who is transformed into a beast and forced to earn back his humanity by learning to truly love and be loved in return.[11][12]

Adam Mitchell[1] portrays the younger version of the prince.

Luke Evans as Gaston, a narcissistic and arrogant hunter and veteran of the French Royal Army who is willing to go as far as it takes to have Belle as his trophy wife.
Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle's protective widowed father.[13]

Jolyon Coy portrays the young Maurice.

Josh Gad as LeFou, Gaston's flamboyant and long-suffering sidekick who bolsters his friend's ego but gets very little in return.[14]
Ewan McGregor as Lumière, the Beast's charismatic bouteiller who has been transformed into a candelabra.[15]
Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, the neurotic court composer and Madame de Garderobe's husband who has been transformed into a harpsichord.[16]
Audra McDonald as Madame de Garderobe, a world-renowned opera singer and Cadenza's wife who has been transformed into a wardrobe.[17]
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, one of the castle maids and Lumière's lover who has been transformed into a feather duster.[18]
Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the Beast's gruff but loyal majordomo and the head of the household staff who has been transformed into a mantel clock.[19]
Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, the castle's motherly head housekeeper who has been transformed into a teapot.[13]
Hattie Morahan as Agathe, an impoverished hermit and resident of Villeneuve who, in reality, is the enchantress responsible for cursing the Prince.[20] Morahan also narrates the prologue.

Rita Davies portrays the enchantress in her beggar woman form. The film was released posthumously after Davies' death.

Nathan Mack as Chip, Mrs. Potts' plucky son who has been transformed into a teacup.[21]
Adrian Schiller as Monsieur D'Arque, the sly warden of the local asylum who is bribed by Gaston to have Maurice institutionalized.[20]
Gerard Horan as Monsieur Jean Potts, an absent-minded potter and resident of Villeneuve who is later revealed to be Mrs. Potts' husband and Chip's father.
Haydn Gwynne as Clothilde, a fishmonger and resident of Villeneuve who is later revealed to be Cogsworth's wife.
Michael Jibson as the Tavern Keeper, the owner and keeper of Villeneuve's local tavern where Gaston and the village residents drink.
Ray Fearon as Père Robert, Villeneuve's local chaplain who encourages Belle to borrow the books in the chapel's meager library.
Sophie Reid, Rafaëlle Cohen, and Carla Nella as the Village Lasses, a trio of women who fawn over Gaston and have a jealousy for Belle.
Jimmy Johnston, Dean Street, and Alexis Loizon as Tom, Dick, and Stanley, a trio of men who serve as Gaston's henchmen.
Zoe Rainey as Belle's mother, Maurice's late wife who contracted the plague and died when Belle was an infant.
Clive Rowe as Cuisinier, the castle's head chef who has been transformed into a stove.
Gizmo as Frou-Frou, Maestro Cadenza's and Madame de Garderobe's pet Yorkshire Terrier who has been transformed into a footstool.
Thomas Padden as Chapeau, the prince's valet who has been transformed into a coat rack.
Tom Turner[2] as The King, the prince's father who, following his wife's death, raised his son to be just as selfish and arrogant as he was.
Harriet Jones as The Queen, the prince's mother who died of an illness when he was a child.
Dale Branston as Villeneuve's residential baker.
Chris Andrew Mellon as Nasty Headmaster, the unnamed headmaster of an all boys school in Villeneuve that disapproves of Belle teaching a young girl how to read.
Vivian Parry as the Village Lass' mother, an unnamed seamstress.

tag: ul

text: Cast notes[edit]

text: ^ In the initial theatrical release, Mitchell was miscredited as Rudi Gooman in the cast, but listed under his real name in the soundtrack credits.[22]

text: ^ In the initial theatrical release, Turner is miscredited as Henry Garrett in the cast.[22]

text: Stephen Merchant also appeared in the film as Monsieur Toilette, a servant who was turned into a toilet. This character was cut from the film, but is featured in the deleted scenes.[23]

text: Production[edit]

text: Development[edit]

text: Previously, Disney had begun work on a film adaptation of the 1994 Broadway musical.[24][25] However, in a 2011 interview, composer Alan Menken stated the planned film version of the Beauty and the Beast stage musical "was canned".[26]

text: By April 2014, Walt Disney Pictures had already begun developing a new live-action version and remake of Beauty and the Beast after making other live-action fantasy films such as Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, Cinderella and The Jungle Book.[27] In June 2014, Bill Condon was signed to direct the film from a script by Evan Spiliotopoulos.[28] Later in September of that same year, Stephen Chbosky (who had previously directed Watson in The Perks of Being a Wallflower) was hired to re-write the script.[29]

text: Before Condon was hired to direct the film, Disney approached him with a proposal to remake the film in a more radical way as Universal Studios had remade Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). Condon later explained that "after Frozen opened, the studio saw that there was this big international audience for an old-school-musical approach. But initially, they said, 'We're interested in a musical to a degree, but only half full of songs.' My interest was taking that film and doing it in this new medium—live-action—as a full-on musical movie. So I backed out for a minute, and they came back and said, 'No, no, no, we get it, let's pursue it that way.'"[30] Walt Disney Pictures president of production Sean Bailey credited Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan F. Horn with the decision to make the film as a musical: "We worked on this for five or six years, and for 18 months to two years, Beauty was a serious dramatic project, and the scripts were written to reflect that. It wasn't a musical at that time. But we just couldn't get it to click and it was Alan Horn who championed the idea of owning the Disney of it all. We realized there was a competitive advantage in the songs. What is wrong with making adults feel like kids again?"[31]

text: Casting[edit]

text: In January 2015, Emma Watson announced that she would be starring as Belle, the female lead.[32] She was the first choice of Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan F. Horn, as he had previously overseen Warner Bros. which released the eight Harry Potter films that co-starred Watson as Hermione Granger.[31] Two months later, Luke Evans and Dan Stevens were revealed to be in talks to play Gaston and the Beast respectively,[33][34] and Watson confirmed their casting the following day through tweets.[11][35] The rest of the principal cast, including Josh Gad, Emma Thompson, Kevin Kline, Audra McDonald, Ian McKellen, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ewan McGregor and Stanley Tucci were announced between March and April to play LeFou, Mrs. Potts, Maurice, Madame de Garderobe, Cogsworth, Plumette, Lumière and Cadenza, respectively.[14][13][17][19][18][15][16][36]

text: Susan Egan, who originated the role of Belle on Broadway, commented on the casting of Watson as "perfect".[37] Paige O'Hara voiced Belle in the original animated film and its sequels, offered to help Watson with her singing lessons.[38]

text: According to The Hollywood Reporter, Emma Watson was reportedly paid $3 million upfront, together with an agreement that her final take-home pay could rise as high as $15 million if the film generated gross box office income similar to Maleficent's $759 million worldwide gross.[39]

text: Filming[edit]

text: Principal photography on the film began at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, United Kingdom, on May 18, 2015.[13][40][41] Filming with the principal actors concluded on August 21.[42][43] Six days later, co-producer Jack Morrissey confirmed that the film had officially wrapped production.[44]

text: The Beast was portrayed with a “more traditional motion capture puppeteering for the body and the physical orientation", where actor Dan Stevens was "in a forty-pound gray suit on stilts for much of the film". The facial capture for the Beast was done separately in order to "communicate the subtleties of the human face" and "[capture the] thought that occurs to him" which gets "through [to] the eyes, which are the last human element in the Beast.” The castle servants who are transformed into household objects were created with CGI animation.[6]

text: Before the release of the film, Bill Condon refilmed one certain sequence in the "Days of the Sun" number, due to confusion among test audiences caused by actress Harriet Jones, who looked similar to Hattie Morahan, who portrayed Agathe. In the original version of the scene, it was Jones's character, the Prince's mother, who sings the first verse of the song, with Rudi Goodman playing the young Prince and Henry Garrett playing his father; but in the reshot version of the scene, the singing part is given to the Prince (now played by Adam Mitchell). The King was also recast to Tom Turner, although Harriet Jones was still the Queen, albeit with dark hair. Both Goodman and Garrett's names were mistakenly featured in the original theatrical release's credits, but was later corrected in home releases.[22]

text: Music[edit]

text: When released in 1991, Beauty and the Beast, marked a turning point for Walt Disney Pictures by appealing to millions of fans with its Oscar-winning musical score by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken. In Bill Condon's opinion, that original score was the key reason he agreed to direct a live-action version of the movie. "That score had more to reveal", he says, "You look at the songs and there's not a clunker in the group. In fact, Frank Rich described it as the best Broadway musical of 1991. The animated version was already darker and more modern than the previous Disney fairytales. Take that vision, put it into a new medium, make it a radical reinvention, something not just for the stage because it's not just being literal, now other elements come into play. It's not just having real actors do it".[45]

text: Condon initially prepared on only drawing inspiration from the original film, but he also planned to include most of the songs composed by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice from the Broadway musical, with the intention of making the film as a "straight-forward, live-action, large-budget movie musical".[46] Menken returned to score the film's music, which features songs from the original film by him and Howard Ashman, plus new material written by Menken and Tim Rice.[47] Menken said the film will not include songs that were written for the Broadway musical and instead, created four new songs.[48] However, an instrumental version of the song "Home", which was written for the musical, is used during the scene where Belle first enters her room in the castle.[49]

text: On January 19, 2017, it was confirmed by both Disney and Céline Dion—singer of the original 1991 "Beauty and the Beast" duet song, with singer Peabo Bryson—that Dion would be performing one of the new original songs "How Does a Moment Last Forever" to play over the end titles.[50] She originally had doubts about whether or not to record the song due to the recent death of her husband and manager René Angélil, who had previously helped her secure the 1991 pop duet. While ultimately accepting the opportunity, she said: "[The] first Beauty and the Beast decision was made with my husband. Now I'm making decisions on my own. It's a little bit harder. I couldn't say yes right away, because I felt like I was kind of cheating in a way". She eventually felt compelled to record the song because of the impact Beauty and the Beast has had on her career. According to Dion, "I was at the beginning of my career, it put me on the map, it put me where I am today". Also, Josh Groban was announced to be performing the new original song "Evermore" on January 26, 2017.[51][52][53][54]

text: The 2017 film features a remake of the 1991 original song recorded as a duet by Ariana Grande and John Legend.[55][56] Grande and Legend's updated version of the title song is faithful to the original, Grammy-winning duet, performed by Céline Dion and Peabo Bryson for the 1991 Disney film.[57] Disney debuted the music video for Ariana Grande and John Legend's interpretation of the title song on Freeform television network on March 5, 2017, and it has since been viewed over 100 million views on the Vevo video-hosting service.[58]

text: Emma Thompson also performed a rendition of the title song, which was performed by Angela Lansbury in the original 1991 animated film.[58]

text: Release[edit]

text: On March 16, 2015, Disney announced the film would be released in 3D on March 17, 2017.[13] The first official presentation of the film took place at Disney's three-day D23 Expo in August 2015.[59]

text: The world premiere of Beauty and the Beast took place at Spencer House in London, United Kingdom on February 23, 2017;[60] and the film later premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, on March 2, 2017. The stream was broadcast onto YouTube.

text: A sing along version of the film released in over 1,200 US theaters nationwide on April 7, 2017.[61] The United Kingdom received the same version on April 21, 2017.[62]

text: The film was re-released in New York and Los Angeles for a one-week engagement starting December 1, 2017. The move is an awards push as awards season heats up.[63]

text: Marketing[edit]

text: Disney spent around $140 million to market the film worldwide.[64] Following an announcement on May 22, 2016,[65] Disney premiered the first official teaser trailer on Good Morning America the next day.[66] In its first 24 hours, the teaser trailer reached 91.8 million views, which topped the number of views seen in that amount of time in history, including for the teasers for other films distributed by Disney such as Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Captain America: Civil War.[67] This record has since been broken by Thor: Ragnarok[68] and It and Avengers: Infinity War.[69][70] The first official teaser poster was released on July 7, 2016.[71] On November 2, 2016, Entertainment Weekly debuted the first official image on the cover of their magazine for the week along with nine new photos as well.[72][73] One week later, Emma Watson and Disney debuted a new poster for the film.[74] On November 14, 2016, the first theatrical trailer was released again on Good Morning America.[75] The trailer reached 127.6 million views in its first 24 hours, setting a new record as the trailer with the most views in one day, beating out Fifty Shades Darker.[76] This record has since been broken again by The Fate of the Furious.[77] A TV spot with Watson singing was shown during the 74th Golden Globe Awards.[78] Disney released the final trailer on January 30, 2017.[79]

text: Home media[edit]

text: Beauty and the Beast was released on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD on June 6, 2017.[80] The film debuted at No. 1 on the NPD VideoScan overall disc sales chart, with all other titles in the top 20, collectively, selling only 40% as many units as Beauty and the Beast.[81] The movie regained the top spot on the national home video sales charts during its third week of release.[82] The movie became available on Netflix on September 19, 2017.

text: Reception[edit]

text: Box office[edit]

text: This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: Needs to be heavily trimmed down. Please help improve this section if you can. (November 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: Beauty and the Beast grossed $504 million in the United States and Canada and $759.5 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $1.263 billion.[a] With a production budget of $160 million, it is the most expensive musical ever made, or the second-most expensive musical ever made if accounting for inflation; only Hello, Dolly! (1969) with a budget of $25 million ($165 million in 2016 dollars) cost more.[4] In just ten days, it became the highest-grossing live-action musical of all time, beating the nine-year-old record held by Mamma Mia!. It is currently the second-biggest musical ever overall, behind Disney's Frozen (2013).[84] Worldwide, the film proved to be a global phenomenon, earning a total of $357 million over its four-day opening weekend from 56 markets. Critics said the film was playing like superhero movies amongst women. It was the second biggest March global opening, behind only Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the thirteenth-biggest worldwide opening ever and the seventh-biggest for Disney.[85] This includes $21 million from IMAX plays on 1,026 screens, a new record for an IMAX PG title.[86] It surpassed the entire lifetime total of the original film in just six days.[87][88]

text: Beauty and the Beast is the 300th digitally remastered release in IMAX company's history, which began with the re-release of Apollo 13 in 2002. Its robust global debut helped push the company past $6 billion for the first time,[89] and led to analysts believing that the film had a shot of passing $1 billion worldwide from theatrical earnings.[90][91][92][93] On April 12, it passed the $1 billion threshold, becoming the first film of 2017, the fourteenth Disney film, and the twenty-ninth film overall to pass the mark. It became the first film since Rogue One (also a Disney property) in December 2016 to make over a billion dollars, and did so on its twenty-ninth day of release.[94][95][96] It is currently the 2nd highest-grossing film of 2017 (behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi),[97] the highest-grossing March release,[98] the highest-grossing remake of all-time,[99] and the sixth-biggest Disney film.[100] Even after inflation adjusted, it is still ahead of the $425 million gross ($760 million in 2017 dollars) of the original film.[99]

text: North America[edit]

text: In the United States and Canada, Beauty and the Beast topped Fandango's pre-sales and became the fastest-selling family film in the company's history, topping the studio's own animated film Finding Dory released the previous year. Early tracking had the film grossing around $100 million in its opening weekend, with some publications predicting it could reach $130 million.[101][102][103] By the time the film's release was 10 days away, analysts raised projections to as high as $150 million.[104][105] It earned $16.3 million from Thursday previews night, marking the biggest of 2017 (breaking Logan's record), the biggest ever for a Disney live-action film (breaking Maleficent's record), the second biggest ever for both a G or PG-rated film (behind the sixth Harry Potter film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which also starred Watson), and the third biggest ever in the month of March (behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Hunger Games).[106] An estimated 41% of the gross came from IMAX, 3D and premium large format screenings which began at 6 pm, while the rest—59%—came from regular 2D shows which began at 7 p.m.[107] The numbers were considered more impressive given that the film played during a school week.[108]

text: On its opening day, the film made $63.8 million from 4,210 theaters across 9,200 screens, marking the third biggest in the month of March, trailing behind Batman v Superman ($81.5 million) and The Hunger Games ($67 million).[109][110] It was also the biggest opening day ever for a film that wasn't PG-13, displacing the $58 million opening Wednesday of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Its opening day alone (which includes Thursday's previews) almost matched the entire opening weekend of previous Disney live-action films, Maleficent ($69.4 million) and Cinderella ($67.9 million).[111] Unlike all previous four Disney live-action films witnessing a hike on their second day, Saturday, Beauty and the Beast actually fell 2%, but nevertheless, the dip was paltry, and the grosses are so much bigger compared to the other titles.[89] Earning a total of $174.8 million on its opening weekend, it defied all expectations and went on to set numerous notable records.[112] This includes the biggest opening of the year as well as the biggest for the month of March and pre-summer/spring opening, beating Batman v Superman,[113][114] the biggest start ever for a PG title (also for a family film), surpassing Finding Dory,[115] the biggest debut of all time for a female-fueled film, ahead of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,[116] the biggest for a Disney live-action adaptation, ahead of Alice in Wonderland[116] and the biggest musical debut ever, supplanting Pitch Perfect 2. Furthermore, it is also Watson's highest-opening, beating Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 same with Emma Thompson, director Bill Condon's biggest debut ever ahead of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 and the biggest outside of summer, save for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, not accounting for inflation.[112]

text: It became the forty-third film to debut with over $100 million and the fifteenth film to open above $150 million. Its three-day opening alone surpassed the entire original North American run of the first film ($146 million; before the 3D re-release), instantly becoming the second-biggest film of the year, behind Logan ($184 million), and also the second-highest-grossing musical, behind Grease's $188 million cumulative gross in 1978.[117] Seventy percent of the total ticket sales came from 2D showings signifying that people who don't go to theaters frequently came out in bulk to watch the film. About 26% of the remaining tickets were for 3D. IMAX accounted for 7% ($12.5 million) of the total weekend's gross, setting a new record for a PG title, ahead of Alice in Wonderland ($12.1 million) while PLF repped 11% of the box office.[89] Seventy percent of the film's opening day demographic was female, dropping to 60% through the weekend.[116] According polling service PostTrak, about 84 percent of American parents who saw the film on its opening day said they would "definitely" recommend it for families.[118][119] The film's opening was credited to positive word of mouth from audiences, good reviews from critics, effective marketing which sold the title not just as a family film but also as a romantic drama, the cast's star power (especially Emma Watson), lack of competition, being the first family film since The Lego Batman Movie a month earlier, nostalgia, and the success and ubiquity of the first film and Disney's brand.[118][120]

text: On Monday, its fourth day of release, the film fell precipitously by 72% earning $13.5 million. The steep fall was due to a limited marketplace where only 11% K-12 and 15% colleges were off per ComScore. Nevertheless, it is the second-biggest March Monday, behind Batman v Superman ($15 million).[121] This was followed by the biggest March and pre-summer Tuesday with $17.8 million, a 32% increase from its previous day. The same day, the film passed $200 million in ticket sales.[122] It earned $228.6 million in the first week of release, the sixth-biggest seven-day gross of all time.[123] In its second weekend, the film continued to maintain the top positioning and fell gradually by 48% earning another $90.4 million to register the fourth-biggest second weekend of all time, and the third-biggest for Disney.[124] In terms of percentage drop, its 48% decline is the third-smallest drop for any film opening above $125 million (behind Finding Dory and The Force Awakens).[84] The hold was notable considering how the film was able to fend off three new wide releases: Power Rangers, Life, and CHiPs.[125] As a result, it passed the $300 million threshold becoming the first film of 2017 the pass said mark.[126] The film grossed $45.4 million in its third weekend, finally being overtaken for the top spot by newcomer The Boss Baby ($50.2 million).[127] On April 4, 2017, its nineteenth day of release, it passed the $400 million threshold becoming the first film of 2017 to do so.[128] By its fourth weekend, the film began was playing in 3,969 cinemas, a fall of 241 theaters from its previous weekend. Of those, approximately 1,200 cinemas were sing-along versions. It earned $26.3 million (-48%) and retained second place. By comparison, previous Disney films Moana (−8%) and Frozen (−2%) both witnessed mild percentage declines the weekend their sing-alone versions were released.[129] Its seventh weekend of release was in contemporaneous with another Emma Watson-starring new film The Circle.[130] That weekend, The Circle was number four, while Beauty and the Beast was at number six.[131] By May 28, the film had earned over $500 million in ticket sales becoming the first film of 2017 (until it was later surpassed by The Last Jedi),[132][133] the third female-fueled film (after The Force Awakens and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story followed by Wonder Woman and The Last Jedi) and the eighth overall film in cinematic history to pass the mark.[134][135][136][137]

text: It has already become the biggest March release, dethroning The Hunger Games (2012),[138] the biggest musical film (both animated and live-action),[139] as well as the biggest film of 2017 (alongside The Last Jedi).[140]

text: Outside North America[edit]

text: Internationally, the film began playing on Thursday, March 16, 2017. Through Sunday, March 19, it had a total international opening of $182.3 million from 55 markets, 44 of which were major territories, far exceeding initial estimations of $100 million and opened at No. 1 in virtually all markets except Vietnam, Turkey, and India. Its launch is the second-biggest for the month of March, behind Batman v Superman ($256.5 million). In IMAX, it recorded the biggest debut for a PG title (although it carried varying certificate amongst different markets) with $8.5 million from 649 screens, the second-biggest for a PG title behind The Jungle Book.[141] In its second weekend, it fell just by 35% earning another $120.6 million and maintaining its first position hold. It added major markets like France and Australia.[142] It topped the international box office for three consecutive weekends[143] before finally being dethroned by Ghost in the Shell and The Boss Baby in its fourth weekend. Despite the fall, the film helped Disney push past the $1 billion thresold internationally for the first time in 2017.[144][96]

text: It scored the biggest opening day of the year in Hong Kong and the Philippines, the biggest March Thursday in Italy ($1 million, also the biggest Disney Thursday debut), the biggest March opening day in Austria, and the second-biggest in Germany ($1.1 million), Disney's biggest March in Denmark, the biggest Disney live-action debut in China ($12.6 million), the UK ($6.2 million), Mexico ($2.4 million) and Brazil ($1.8 million) and the third-biggest in South Korea with $1.2 million, behind only Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.[145][146] In terms of opening weekend, the largest debut came from China ($44.8 million), followed by the UK ($24.3 million), Korea ($11.8 million), Mexico ($11.8 million), Australia ($11.1 million), Brazil ($11 million), Germany ($10.7 million), France ($8.4 million), Italy ($7.6 million), Philippines ($6.3 million), Russia ($6 million) and Spain ($5.8 million).[141][142]

text: In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the film recorded the biggest opening ever for a PG-rated film, the biggest Disney live-action opening of all time, the biggest March opening weekend, the biggest opening for a musical (ahead of 2012's Les Misérables), the number one opening of 2017 to date and the fifth-biggest-ever overall with £19.7 million ($24.5 million) from 639 theatres and almost twice that of The Jungle Book (£9.9 million).[147] This included the second-biggest Saturday ever (£7.9 million), only behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens.[148] It witnessed a decline in its second weekend, earning £12.33 million ($15.4 million). Though the film was falling at a faster rate than The Jungle Book, it had already surpassed the said film and its second weekend is the third-biggest ever (behind the two James Bond films Skyfall (2012) and Spectre).[149][142] In India, despite facing heavy competitions from four new Hindi releases, two Tamils films and a Malayalam and a Punjabi release, the film managed to take an occupancy of 15% on its opening day, an impressive feat despite tremendous competitions.[150][151][152] It earned around ₹1.5 crore (US$240,000) nett on its opening day from an estimated 600 screens which is more than the three Hindi releases—Machine, Trapped, and Aa Gaya Hero—combined.[153] Disney reported a total of ₹9.26 crore (US$1.5 million) gross for its opening weekend there. It was ahead of all new releases and second overall behind Bollywood film Badrinath Ki Dulhania.[154][155][156] In Russia, despite receiving a restrictive 16 rating, the film managed to deliver a very successful opening with $6 million.[157]

text: In China, expectations were high for the film. The release date was announced on January 24, giving Disney and local distributor China Film Group Corporation ample time—around two months—to market the film nationwide. The release date was strategically chosen to coincide with White Day. Preliminary reports suggested that it could open to $40–60 million in its opening weekend. Largely driven by young women, its opening day pre-sales outpaced that of The Jungle Book.[158] The original film was, however, never widely popular in the country.[159] Although China has occasionally blocked gay-themed content from streaming video services, in this case, Chinese censors decided to leave the gay scene intact. According to local box office tracker Ent Group, the film grossed an estimated $12.1 million on its opening day (Friday), representing 70% of the total receipts. Including previews, it made a total of $14.5 million from 100,000 screenings, which is 43% of all screenings in the country.[160] It climbed to $18.5 million on Saturday (102,700 showings) for a three-day total of $42.6 million, securing 60% of the total marketplace. Disney on the other hand reported a different figure of $44.8 million.[161][162] Either ways, it recorded the second-biggest opening for a Disney live-action film,[159] with $3.4 million coming from 386 IMAX screens.[141] Japan—a huge Disney market—served as the film's final market and opened there on April 21.[142] It debuted with a better-than-expected $12.5 million on its opening weekend helping the film push past the $1.1 billion threshold. An estimated $1.1 million came from IMAX screenings, the fourth-biggest ever in the country.[163][164] The two-day gross was $9.7 million, outstripping Frozen's previous record of $9.5 million.[165] Due to positive reviews, good word-of-mouth and benefitting from the Golden Week, the film saw a 9% increase on its second weekend. The hold was strong enough to fend off newcomer The Fate of the Furious from securing the top spot. The total there is now over $98 million after seven weekends[166][167][168] and is the biggest film release of the year and, overall, the eleventh-biggest of all time.[169] It topped the box office there for eight consecutive weekends.[170][171]

text: The only markets where the film did not top the weekend charts were Vietnam (behind Kong: Skull Island), Turkey (with two local movies and Logan ahead) and India (where Badrinath Ki Dulhania retained No. 1).[141] It topped the box office for four straight weekends in Germany, Korea, Austria, Finland, Poland, Portugal, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Switzerland and the UK (exclusive of previews).[144][172] In the Philippines, it emerged as the most successful commercial film of all time—both local and foreign—with over $13.5 million.[173] In just five weeks, the film became one of the top 10 highest-grossing film of all time in the United Kingdom and Ireland, ahead of all but one Harry Potter film (Deathly Hallows – Part 2) and all three The Lord of the Rings movies (which also starred Ian McKellen).[174] It is currently the eighth-biggest grosser with £70.1 million ($90 million), overtaking Mamma Mia! to become the biggest musical production ever there.[163][175] The biggest international earning markets following the UK are Japan ($108 million), China ($85.8 million), Brazil ($41.5 million), Korea ($37.5 million), and Australia ($35 million).[170] In Europe alone, the cumulative total is $267 million to become the second-highest-grossing film in the past year (behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story).[163][166][176]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: Beauty and the Beast received generally positive reviews, with praise for the faithfulness to the original film with a few elements of the Broadway musical version, ensemble cast, visuals, production merits, musical score, and songs, though the designs of the Beast and the servants' household object forms received mixed reviews.[9][10] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 308 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "With an enchanting cast, beautifully crafted songs, and a painterly eye for detail, Beauty and the Beast offers a faithful yet fresh retelling that honors its beloved source material."[177] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 65 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[178] In CinemaScore polls, audiences gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[179][180]

text: Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "It's a Michelin-triple-starred master class in patisserie skills that transforms the cinematic equivalent of a sugar rush into a kind of crystal-meth-like narcotic high that lasts about two hours." Felperin also praised the performances of Watson and Kline as well the special effects, costume designs and the sets while commended the inclusion of Gad's character of LeFou as the first LGBT character in Disney.[181] Owen Gleiberman of Variety, in his positive review of the film, wrote: "It's a lovingly crafted movie, and in many ways a good one, but before that it's an enraptured piece of old-is-new nostalgia." Gleiberman compared Steven's character of the Beast to a royal version of the titular character in The Elephant Man and the 1946 version of the Beast in Jean Cocteau's original adaptation.[182] A. O. Scott of The New York Times praised the performances of both Watson and Stevens, and wrote: "It looks good, moves gracefully and leaves a clean and invigorating aftertaste. I almost didn't recognize the flavor: I think the name for it is joy."[183]

text: Likewise, The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday complimented Watson's performance, describing it as "alert and solemn" while noting her singing ability as "serviceable enough to get the job done".[184] Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three and a half stars, lauded the performances of Watson and Thompson which he drew a comparison to Paige O'Hara's and Angela Lansbury's performances in the 1991 animated version while appreciating the performances of the other cast and also pointing out on its usage of the combination of motion capture and CGI technology as a big advantage which he stated: "Almost overwhelmingly lavish, beautifully staged and performed with exquisite timing and grace by the outstanding cast".[185] Mike Ryan of Uproxx praised the cast, production design and the new songs while noting the film doesn't try anything different, saying: "There's certainly nothing that new about this version of Beauty and the Beast (well, except it isn't a cartoon anymore), but it's a good recreation of a classic animated film that should leave most die-hards satisfied."[186] In her A- review, Nancy Churnin of The Dallas Morning News praised the film's emotional and thematic depth, remarking: "There's an emotional authenticity in director Bill Condon's live-action Beauty and the Beast film that helps you rediscover Disney's beloved 1991 animated film and 1994 stage show in fresh, stirring ways."[187] James Berardinelli of ReelViews described the 2017 version as "enthralling".[188]

text: Brian Truitt of USA Today commended the performances of Evans, Gad, McGregor and Thompson alongside Condon's affinity with musicals, the production design, visual effects featured in some of the song numbers including new songs made by the composers Alan Menken and Tim Rice, particularly Evermore which he described the new song with a potential for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.[189] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated the film three out of four stars which he deemed it as an "exhilarating gift" while he remarked that "Beauty and the Beast does justice to Disney's animated classic, even if some of the magic is M.I.A (Missing in Action)".[190] Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine gave a positive review with a description as "Wild, Vivid and Crazy-Beautiful" as she wrote "Nearly everything about Beauty and the Beast is larger than life, to the point that watching it can be a little overwhelming." and added that "it’s loaded with feeling, almost like a brash interpretive dance expressing the passion and elation little girls (and some boys, too) must have felt upon seeing the earlier version."[191] The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle struck an affirmative tone, calling it one of the joys of 2017, stating that "Beauty and the Beast creates an air of enchantment from its first moments, one that lingers and builds and takes on qualities of warmth and generosity as it goes along" while referring the film as "beautiful" and also praised the film for its emotional and psychological tone as well Steven's motion capture performance.[192]

text: Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph gave the film four stars out of five and wrote that "It dazzles on this chocolate box of a picture that feels almost greedy yet to make this film work, down to a sugar-rush finale to grasp the nettle and make an out-an-out, bells-and-whistles musical" while he praised the performances of Watson, McKellen, Thompson, McGregor, Evans and Gad.[193] Mark Hughes of Forbes also similarly praised the film which he wrote that "it could revive the story in a faithful but entirely new and unique way elevating the material beyond expectations, establishing itself as a cinematic equal to the original" and also complimented the importance of undertaking a renowned yet problematic masterpiece as well addressing changes in the elements of the story while acknowledging the film's effectiveness in resonating to the audiences.[194] Stephen Whitty of the New York Daily News called it "this year's best new old musical" and "the most magical thing of all" while describing Watson's performance of Belle as "breakthrough".[195]

text: Several critics regarded the film as inferior to its 1991 animated predecessor. David Sims of The Atlantic wrote that the 2017 film "feels particularly egregious, in part, because it’s so slavishly devoted to the original; every time it falls short of its predecessor (which is quite often), it’s hard not to notice".[196] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said that the 2017 film "takes our knowledge and our interest in the material for granted. It zips from one number to another, throwing a ton of frenetically edited eye candy at the screen, charmlessly." Phillips wrote that the film featured some "less conspicuously talented" performers who are "stuck doing karaoke, or motion-capture work of middling quality", though he praised Kline's performance as the "best, sweetest thing in the movie; he brings a sense of calm, droll authority".[197] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised Watson's performance and wrote that the film was "lit in that fascinatingly artificial honey-glow light, and it runs smoothly on rails—the kind of rails that bring in and out the stage sets for the lucrative Broadway touring version." In the same newspaper, Wendy Ide criticized the film as "ornate to the point of desperation" in its attempt to emulate the animated film.[198][199]

text: Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B-, writing that while the film looks "exceptionally great", he said the new songs were "not transporting". He felt the film needed more life and depth, but praised Watson's and Steven's performances as the "film’s stronger elements".[200] Dana Schwartz of The New York Observer felt that some of the characters, such as Gaston and the Beast, had been watered down from the 1991 film, and that the additional backstory elements failed to "advance the plot or theme in any meaningful way" while adding considerable bloat. Schwartz considered the singing of the cast to be adequate but felt that their voices should have been dubbed over, especially for the complex songs.[201]

text: Accolades[edit]

text:
Award
Date of ceremony
Category
Recipient(s) and nominee(s)
Result
Ref.

Academy Awards
March 4, 2018
Best Production Design
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer
Pending
[202]

Best Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran
Pending

Art Directors Guild Awards
January 27, 2018
Excellence in Production Design for a Fantasy Film
Sarah Greenwood
Pending
[203]

British Academy Film Awards
February 18, 2018
Best Production Design
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer
Pending
[204]

Best Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran
Pending

Casting Society of America
January 18, 2018
Big Budget – Comedy
Lucy Bevan, Bernard Telsey and Tiffany Little Canfield
Nominated
[205]

Chicago Film Critics Association
December 12, 2017
Best Art Direction
Sarah Greenwood
Nominated
[206]
[207]

Costume Designers Guild Awards
February 20, 2018
Excellence in Fantasy Film
Jacqueline Durran
Pending
[208]

Critics' Choice Movie Awards
January 11, 2018
Best Art Direction
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer
Nominated
[209]

Best Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran
Nominated

Best Hair & Makeup
Beauty and the Beast
Nominated

Best Song
"Evermore"
Nominated

Guild of Music Supervisors Awards
February 8, 2018
Best Music Supervision for Film: Budgeted Over 25 Million Dollars
Sullivan, MattMatt Sullivan
Pending
[210]

Golden Trailer Awards
June 6, 2017
Best Animation/Family
Beauty and the Beast
Nominated
[211]

Best Original Score
Nominated

Best Animation/Family TV Spot
Nominated

Best Fantasy Adventure TV Spot
Nominated

Hollywood Film Awards
November 5, 2017
Costume Design Award
Jacqueline Durran[b]
Won
[212]

Make-Up & Hair Styling Award
Jenny Shircore
Won

Hollywood Music in Media Awards
November 16, 2017
Best Original Song – Animated Film
"How Does a Moment Last Forever" - Alan Menken and Tim Rice
Nominated
[213]
[214]

Best Original Song – Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror Film
Won

"Evermore" – Alan Menken and Tim Rice
Nominated

Best Soundtrack Album
Beauty and the Beast
Nominated

Hollywood Post Alliance
Outstanding Color Grading – Feature Film
Stefan Sonnenfeld
Nominated
[215]
[216]

Outstanding Visual Effects – Feature Film
Kyle McCulloch, Glen Pratt, Richard Hoover, Dale Newton, Neil Weatherley, and Framestore
Nominated

Houston Film Critics Society
January 6, 2018
Best Original Song
"Evermore" – Alan Menken and Tim Rice
Nominated
[217]

MTV Movie & TV Awards
May 7, 2017
Movie of the Year
Beauty and the Beast
Won
[218]

Best Actor in a Movie
Emma Watson
Won

Best Kiss
Emma Watson and Dan Stevens
Nominated

Best Duo
Josh Gad and Luke Evans
Nominated

Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild
February 24, 2018
Feature Motion Picture: Best Period and/or Character Hair
Jenny Shircore, Marc Pilcher and Charlotte Hayward
Pending
[219]

NAACP Image Awards
January 15, 2018
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Audra McDonald
Nominated
[220]

Publicists Guild Awards
March 2, 2018
Motion Picture
Beauty and the Beast
Pending
[221]

San Diego Film Critics Society
December 11, 2017
Best Production Design
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer
Nominated
[222]
[223]

Best Visual Effects
Beauty and the Beast
Runner-up[c]

Best Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran
Won[d]

Best Use of Music
Beauty and the Beast
Nominated

Satellite Awards
February 10, 2018
Best Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran
Pending
[224]

Seattle Film Critics Society
December 18, 2017
Best Costume Design
Nominated
[225]
[226]

St. Louis Film Critics Association
December 17, 2017
Best Production Design
Sarah Greenwood
Nominated
[227]
[228]

Best Visual Effects
Beauty and the Beast
Nominated

Teen Choice Awards
August 13, 2017
Choice Movie: Fantasy
Won
[229]
[230]

Choice Movie: Fantasy Actor
Dan Stevens
Nominated

Choice Movie: Fantasy Actress
Emma Watson
Won

Choice Movie Villain
Luke Evans
Won

Choice Movie Ship
Emma Watson and Dan Stevens
Won

Choice Liplock
Won

Choice Scene Stealer
Josh Gad
Nominated

Choice Hissy Fit
Luke Evans
Nominated

Dan Stevens
Nominated

Visual Effects Society Awards
February 13, 2018
Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Photoreal Project
Shannon Justison, Casey Schatz, Neil Weatherley, Claire Michaud for "Be Our Guest"
Pending
[231]

Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association
December 8, 2017
Best Motion Capture Performance
Dan Stevens
Nominated
[232]

Best Production Design
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer
Nominated

Women Film Critics Circle
December 17, 2017
Best Family Film
Beauty and the Beast
Nominated
[233]
[234]

text: Controversies[edit]

text: Gay character[edit]

text: Controversy erupted after director Bill Condon said there was a "gay moment" in the film, when LeFou briefly waltzes with Stanley, one of Gaston's friends.[235] Afterwards in an interview with Vulture.com, Condon stated, "Can I just say, I’m sort of sick of this. Because you've seen the movie—it's such a tiny thing, and it's been overblown." Condon also added that Beauty and the Beast features much more diversity than just the highly talked-about LeFou: "That was so important. We have interracial couples—this is a celebration of everybody's individuality, and that's what’s exciting about it.”[236] GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis praised the move stating, "It is a small moment in the film, but it is a huge leap forward for the film industry."[237]

text: In Russia, Vitaly Milonov agitated the culture minister for banning the film,[238] but instead it was given a 16+ rating (children under the age of 16 can only be admitted to see it in theaters with accompanying adults).[239] Additionally, a theater in Henagar, Alabama did not screen the film because of the subplot.[240] In Malaysia, the Film Censorship Board insisted the "gay moment" scene be cut, prompting an indefinite postponement of its release by Disney, followed by their decision to withdraw it completely if it could not be released uncensored.[241][242][243] The studio moved the release date to March 30, to allow more time for Malaysia's censor board to make a decision on whether or not to release the film without changes.[244] The distributors and producers then submitted an appeal to the Film Appeal Committee of Malaysia, which allowed the film to be released without any cuts and a P13 rating on the grounds that the "gay element" was minor and did not affect the positive elements featured in the film.[245][246] In Kuwait, the movie was withdrawn from cinemas by National Cinema Company which owns most of the cinemas in the country. A board member of the company stated that the Ministry of Information's censorship department had requested it to stop its screening and edit it for things deemed offensive by it.[247]

text: The film also received criticism over its portrayal of LeFou, as many felt that it relied on stereotypes[248] and was used as a way of teasing LGBT+ viewers without providing adequate representation.[249] LeFou's status as a sidekick to the main villain brought about criticism over Disney's queercoding of villains in the past, and his infatuation with Gaston was seen as relying on a stereotype of gay men being predatory towards straight men.[250] Furthermore, the only gay interaction LeFou has is a three-second clip of him dancing with another man at the end of the film. Many saw this as Disney cheating its LGBT+ audiences.[251]

text: Belle and the Beast's relationship[edit]

text: Disney has sought to portray Belle as an empowered young woman,[252] but a debate questioning whether it is possible for a captor to fall in love with their prisoner, and whether this is a problematic theme, has resulted.[253] As was the case with the original animated film, one argument is that Belle suffers from Stockholm syndrome (a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity). Emma Watson studied whether Belle is trapped in an abusive relationship with the Beast before signing on and concluded that she does not think the criticism fits this version of the folk tale.[254][255] Watson described Stockholm Syndrome as "where a prisoner will take on the characteristics of and fall in love with the captor. Belle actively argues and disagrees with [Beast] constantly. She has none of the characteristics of someone with Stockholm Syndrome because she keeps her independence, she keeps that freedom of thought", also adding that Belle defiantly "gives as good as she gets" before forming a friendship and romance with the Beast.[256]

text: Psychiatrist Frank Ochberg, who coined the term "Stockholm syndrome", said he does not think Belle exhibits the trauma symptoms of prisoners suffering from the syndrome because she does not go through a period of feeling that she is going to die.[257] Some therapists, while acknowledging that the pairing's relationship does not meet the clinical definition of Stockholm syndrome, argue that the relationship depicted is dysfunctional and abusive and does not model healthy romantic relationships for young viewers.[258][259] Constance Grady of Vox writes that Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's Beauty and the Beast was a fairy tale originally written to prepare young girls in 18th-century France for arranged marriages, and that the power disparity is amplified in the Disney version.[260] Anna Menta of Elite Daily argued that the Beast does not apologize to Belle for imprisoning, hurting, or manipulating her, and his treatment of Belle is not painted as wrong.[261]

text: Notes[edit]

text:
^ Jump up to: a b Beauty and the Beast at Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 14, 2017.
Jump up ^ Also credited for Darkest Hour.
Jump up ^ Tied with Dunkirk.
Jump up ^ Tied with Mark Bridges for Phantom Thread.

tag: ol


document_title: Brave New World

question_text: what inspired huxley to write brave new world

root

text: Brave New World

text: Title[edit]

text: Brave New World's title derives from Miranda's speech in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:[5]

tag: p

text:
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

text: Translations of the title often allude to similar expressions used in domestic works of literature: the French edition of the work is entitled Le Meilleur des mondes (The Best of All Worlds), an allusion to an expression used by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz[7] and satirised in Candide, Ou l'Optimisme by Voltaire (1759).

text: History[edit]

text: Huxley wrote Brave New World while living in Sanary-sur-Mer, France, in the four months from May to August 1931.[8] By this time, Huxley had already established himself as a writer and social satirist. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines, and had published a collection of his poetry (The Burning Wheel, 1916) and four successful satirical novels: Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), and Point Counter Point (1928). Brave New World was Huxley's fifth novel and first dystopian work.

text: Huxley said that Brave New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H. G. Wells, including A Modern Utopia (1905) and Men Like Gods (1923).[9] Wells's hopeful vision of the future's possibilities gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novel, which became Brave New World. He wrote in a letter to Mrs. Arthur Goldsmith, an American acquaintance, that he had "been having a little fun pulling the leg of H. G. Wells," but then he "got caught up in the excitement of [his] own ideas."[10] Unlike the most popular optimist utopian novels of the time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred to Brave New World as a "negative utopia", somewhat influenced by Wells's own The Sleeper Awakes (dealing with subjects like corporate tyranny and behavioural conditioning) and the works of D. H. Lawrence.

text: George Orwell believed that Brave New World must have been partly derived from the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.[11] However, in a 1962 letter, Huxley says that he wrote Brave New World long before he had heard of We.[12] According to We translator Natasha Randall, Orwell believed that Huxley was lying.[13] The scientific futurism in Brave New World is believed to be cribbed from Daedalus by J. B. S. Haldane.[14]

text: The events of the Depression in Britain in 1931, with its mass unemployment and the abandonment of the gold currency standard, persuaded Huxley to assert that stability was the "primal and ultimate need" if civilisation was to survive the present crisis.[15] The Brave New World character Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe, is named after Sir Alfred Mond. Shortly before writing the novel, Huxley visited Mond's technologically advanced plant near Billingham, north east England, and it made a great impression on him.[15]

text: Huxley used the setting and characters in his science fiction novel to express widely held opinions, particularly the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. An early trip to the United States gave Brave New World much of its character. Not only was Huxley outraged by the culture of youth, commercial cheeriness and sexual promiscuity, and the inward-looking nature of many Americans,[16] he had also found the book My Life and Work by Henry Ford on the boat to America, and he saw the book's principles applied in everything he encountered after leaving San Francisco.[17]

text: Plot[edit]

text: The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar), where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programs into predetermined classes (or castes) based on intelligence and labour. Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, is popular and sexually desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not. He is shorter in stature than the average member of his high caste, which gives him an inferiority complex. His work with sleep-learning allows him to understand, and disapprove of, his society's methods of keeping its citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption of a soothing drug called soma. Courting disaster, Bernard is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland because of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a gifted writer who finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in their pain-free society.

text: Bernard takes a holiday with Lenina outside the World State to a Savage Reservation in New Mexico, in which the two observe natural-born people, disease, the aging process, other languages, and religious lifestyles for the first time. (The culture of the village folk resembles the contemporary Native American groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi, including the Puebloan peoples of Acoma, Laguna and Zuni.) Bernard and Lenina witness a violent public ritual and then encounter Linda, a woman originally from the World State who is living on the reservation with her son John, now a young man. She too visited the reservation on a holiday many years ago but became separated from her group and was left behind. She had meanwhile become pregnant by a fellow-holidaymaker (who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning). She did not try to return to the World State because of her shame at her pregnancy. Despite spending his whole life in the reservation, John has never been accepted by the villagers, and his and Linda's lives have been hard and unpleasant. Linda has taught John to read, although from the only two books in her possession: a scientific manual and the complete works of Shakespeare. Ostracised by the villagers, John is able to articulate his feelings only in terms of Shakespearean drama, especially the tragedies of Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Linda now wants to return to London, and John too wants to see this "brave new world". Bernard sees an opportunity to thwart plans to exile him, and gets permission to take Linda and John back. On their return to London, John meets the Director and calls him his "father", a vulgarity which causes a roar of laughter. The humiliated Director resigns in shame before he can follow through with exiling Bernard.

text: Bernard, as "custodian" of the "savage" John who is now treated as a celebrity, is fawned on by the highest members of society and revels in attention he once scorned. Bernard's popularity is fleeting, though, and he becomes envious that John only really bonds with the literary-minded Helmholtz. Considered hideous and friendless, Linda goes into a permanent soma state, while John refuses to attend social events organised by Bernard, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society. Lenina and John are physically attracted to each other, but John's view of courtship and romance, based on Shakespeare, is utterly incompatible with Lenina's freewheeling attitude to sex. She tries to seduce him, but he attacks her, before suddenly being informed that his mother is on her deathbed. He rushes to Linda's bedside, causing a scandal as this is not the "correct" attitude to death. Some children who enter the ward for "death-conditioning" come across as disrespectful to John until he attacks one physically. He then tries to break up a distribution of soma to a lower-caste group, telling them that he is freeing them. Helmholtz and Bernard rush in to stop the ensuing riot, which the police end up handling.

text: Bernard, Helmholtz and John are all brought before Mustapha Mond, the "Resident World Controller for Western Europe", who tells Bernard and Helmholtz that they are to be exiled to islands for antisocial activity. Bernard pleads for a second chance, but Helmholtz welcomes the opportunity to be a true individual, and chooses the Falkland Islands as his destination, believing that their bad weather will inspire his writing. Mond says that Bernard does not know that exile is actually a reward. The islands are full of the most interesting people in the world, individuals who did not fit in the World State community. Mond outlines for John the events that led to the present society and his arguments for a caste system and social control. John rejects Mond's arguments, and Mond sums up John's views by claiming that John demands "the right to be unhappy". John asks if he may go to the islands as well, but Mond refuses and says he wishes to see what happens to him next.

text: Jaded with his new life, John moves to an abandoned hilltop tower, near the village of Puttenham, where he intends to adopt a solitary ascetic lifestyle in order to purify himself of civilization, practising self-flagellation. This soon draws reporters and eventually hundreds of amazed sightseers, hoping to witness his bizarre behaviour; one of them is implied to be Lenina. At the sight of the woman he both adores and loathes, John attacks her with his whip. The onlookers are wildly aroused by the display and John is caught up in the crowd's soma-fueled frenzy. The next morning, he remembers the previous night's events and is stricken with remorse. Onlookers and journalists who arrive that evening discover John dead, having hanged himself.

text: Characters[edit]

text: John – the illicit son of the Director and Linda, born and reared on the Savage Reservation ("Malpais") after Linda was unwittingly left behind by her errant lover. John ("the Savage", as he is often called) is an outsider both on the Reservation—where the natives still practice marriage, natural birth, family life and religion—and the ostensibly civilised World State, based on principles of stability and shallow happiness. He has read nothing but the complete works of William Shakespeare, which he quotes extensively, and, for the most part, aptly, though his allusion to the "Brave New World" (Miranda's words in The Tempest) takes on a darker and bitterly ironic resonance as the novel unfolds. John is intensely moral according to a code that he has been taught by Shakespeare and life in Malpais but is also naïve: his views are as imported into his own consciousness as are the hypnopedic messages of World State citizens. The admonishments of the men of Malpais taught him to regard his mother as a whore; but he cannot grasp that these were the same men who continually sought her out despite their supposedly sacred pledges of monogamy. Because he is unwanted in Malpais, he accepts the invitation to travel back to London and is initially astonished by the comforts of the World State. However, he remains committed to values that exist only in his poetry. He first spurns Lenina for failing to live up to his Shakespearean ideal and then the entire utopian society: he asserts that its technological wonders and consumerism are poor substitutes for individual freedom, human dignity and personal integrity. After his mother's death, he becomes deeply distressed with grief, surprising onlookers in the hospital. He then ostracizes himself from society and attempts to purify himself of "sin" (desire), but is finally unable to do so and hangs himself in despair.

text: Bernard Marx – a sleep-learning specialist at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. Although Bernard is an Alpha-Plus (the upper class of the society), he is a misfit. He is unusually short for an Alpha; an alleged accident with alcohol in Bernard's blood-surrogate before his decanting has left him slightly stunted. Bernard's independence of mind stems more from his inferiority complex and depressive nature than from any depth of philosophical conviction. Unlike his fellow utopians, Bernard is often angry, resentful, and jealous. At times, he is also cowardly and hypocritical. His conditioning is clearly incomplete. He doesn't enjoy communal sports, solidarity services, or promiscuous sex. He doesn't even get much joy out of soma. Bernard is in love with Lenina but he doesn't like her sleeping with other men, even though "everyone belongs to everyone else". Bernard's triumphant return to utopian civilisation with John the Savage from the Reservation precipitates the downfall of the Director, who had been planning to exile him. Bernard's triumph is short-lived. Success goes to his head. Despite his tearful pleas, he is ultimately banished to an island for his non-conformist behaviour.

text: Helmholtz Watson – a handsome and successful Alpha-Plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering and a friend of Bernard. He feels unfulfilled writing endless propaganda doggerel, and the stifling conformism and philistinism of the World State make him restive. Helmholtz is ultimately exiled to the Falkland Islands—a cold asylum for disaffected Alpha-Plus non-conformists—after reading a heretical poem to his students on the virtues of solitude and helping John destroy some Deltas' rations of soma following Linda's death. Unlike Bernard, he takes his exile in his stride and comes to view it as an opportunity for inspiration in his writing.

text: Lenina Crowne – a young, beautiful fetus technician at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre. She is part of the 30% of the female population that are not freemartins (sterile women). Lenina is promiscuous and popular but somewhat quirky in their society: she had a four-month relation with Henry Foster, choosing not to have sex with anyone but him for a period of time. She is basically happy and well-conditioned but will use soma to suppress unwelcome emotions, as is expected. Lenina has a date with Bernard, to whom she feels ambivalently attracted, and she goes to the Reservation with him. On returning to civilisation, she tries and fails to seduce John the Savage. John loves and desires Lenina but he is repelled by her forwardness and the prospect of pre-marital sex, rejecting her as an "impudent strumpet". Lenina visits John at the lighthouse but he attacks her with a whip, unwittingly inciting onlookers to do the same. Her exact fate is left unspecified.

text: Mustapha Mond – Resident World Controller of Western Europe, "His Fordship" Mustapha Mond presides over one of the ten zones of the World State, the global government set up after the cataclysmic Nine Years' War and great Economic Collapse. Sophisticated and good-natured, Mond is an urbane and hyperintelligent advocate of the World State and its ethos of "Community, Identity, Stability". Among the novel's characters, he is uniquely aware of the precise nature of the society he oversees and what it has given up to accomplish its gains. Mond argues that art, literature, and scientific freedom must be sacrificed to secure the ultimate utilitarian goal of maximising societal happiness. He defends the genetic caste system, behavioural conditioning, and the lack of personal freedom in the World State: these, he says, are a price worth paying for achieving social stability, the highest social virtue because it leads to lasting happiness.

text: Fanny Crowne – Lenina Crowne's friend (they have the same last name because only ten thousand last names are in use in the World State). Fanny voices the conventional values of her caste and society, particularly the importance of promiscuity: she advises Lenina that she should have more than one man in her life because it is unseemly to concentrate on just one. Fanny then, however, warns Lenina away from a new lover whom she considers undeserving, yet she is ultimately supportive of the young woman's attraction to the savage John.

text: Henry Foster – One of Lenina's many lovers, he is a perfectly conventional Alpha male, casually discussing Lenina's body with his coworkers. His success with Lenina, and his casual attitude about it, infuriate the jealous Bernard. Henry ultimately proves himself every bit the ideal World State citizen, finding no courage to defend Lenina from John's assaults despite having maintained an uncommonly longstanding sexual relationship with her.

text: Benito Hoover – Another of Lenina's lovers. She remembers that he is particularly hairy when he takes his clothes off.

text: The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning (DHC), also known as Thomas "Tomakin" – He is the administrator of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where he is a threatening figure who intends to exile Bernard to Iceland. His plans take an unexpected turn, however, when Bernard returns from the Reservation with Linda (see below) and John, a child they both realize is actually his. This fact, scandalous and obscene in the World State not because it was extramarital (which all sexual acts are) but because it was procreative, leads the Director to resign his post in shame.

text: Linda – John's mother, decanted as a Beta-Minus in the World State and subsequently lost during a storm while visiting the New Mexico Savage Reservation with the Director many years before the events of the novel. Despite following her usual precautions, Linda became pregnant with the Director's son during their time together and was therefore unable to return to the World State by the time that she found her way to Malpais. Having been conditioned to the promiscuous social norms of the World State, Linda finds herself at once popular with every man in the pueblo (because she is open to all sexual advances) and also reviled for the same reason, seen as a whore by the wives of the men who visit her and by the men themselves (who come to her nonetheless). Linda is desperate to return to the World State and to soma, wanting nothing more from her remaining life than comfort until death.

text: The Arch-Community-Songster – The secular equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the World State society.

text: The Warden – An Alpha-Minus, the talkative chief administrator for the New Mexico Savage Reservation. He is blond, short, broad-shouldered, and has a booming voice.[18]

text: Darwin Bonaparte – a "big game photographer" (i.e. filmmaker) who films John flogging himself. Darwin Bonaparte is known for two other works: "feely of the gorillas' wedding",[19] and "Sperm Whale's Love-life".[19] He has already made a name for himself[20] but still seeks more. He renews his fame by filming the savage, John, in his newest release "The Savage of Surrey".[21] His name alludes to Charles Darwin and Napoleon Bonaparte.

text: Others[edit]

text: Freemartins: These women have been deliberately made sterile by exposure to hormones during fetal development. In the book, government policy requires freemartins to form 70% of the female population.

text: Of Malpais[edit]

text:
Popé, a native of Malpais. Although he reinforces the behaviour that causes hatred for Linda in Malpais by sleeping with her and bringing her mescal, he still holds the traditional beliefs of his tribe. In his early years John also attempts to kill him. He gave Linda a copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare.
Mitsima, an elder tribal shaman who also teaches John survival skills such as rudimentary ceramics (specifically coil pots, which were traditional to Native American tribes) and bow-making.

text: Background figures[edit]

text: These are non-fictional and factual characters who lived before the events in this book, but are of note in the novel:

text:
Henry Ford, who has become a messianic figure to the World State. "Our Ford" is used in place of "Our Lord", as a credit to popularising the use of the assembly line. Huxley's description of Ford as a central figure in the emergence of the Brave New World might also be a reference to the utopian industrial city of Fordlândia commissioned by Ford in 1927.[speculation?]
Sigmund Freud, "Our Freud" is sometimes said in place of "Our Ford" because Freud's psychoanalytic method depends implicitly upon the rules of classical conditioning, and because Freud popularized the idea that sexual activity is essential to human happiness, beyond its role in procreation. (It is also strongly implied that citizens of the World State believe Freud and Ford to be the same person.)[22]
H. G. Wells, "Dr Wells", British writer and utopian socialist, whose book Men Like Gods was an incentive for Brave New World. "All's well that ends Wells", wrote Huxley in his letters, criticising Wells for anthropological assumptions Huxley found unrealistic.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, whose conditioning techniques are used to train infants.
William Shakespeare, whose banned works are quoted throughout the novel by John, "the Savage". The plays quoted include Macbeth, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure and Othello. Mustapha Mond also knows them because as a World Controller he has access to a selection of books from throughout history, including the Bible.
Thomas Robert Malthus, 19thc British economist, believed the people of the Earth would eventually be threatened by their inability to raise enough food to feed the population. In the novel, the eponymous character devises the contraceptive techniques (Malthusian belt) that are practised by women of the World State.
Reuben Rabinovitch, the Russian-Jewish character on whom the effects of sleep-learning, hypnopædia, are first observed.
John Henry Newman, 19thc Catholic theologian and educator, believed university education the critical element in advancing post-industrial Western civilization. Mustapha Mond and The Savage discuss a passage from one of Newman's books.

text: Sources of names and references[edit]

text: The limited number of names that the World State assigned to its bottle-grown citizens can be traced to political and cultural figures who contributed to the bureaucratic, economic, and technological systems of Huxley's age, and presumably those systems in Brave New World.[23]

text: Critical reception[edit]

text: Upon publication, Rebecca West praised Brave New World as "The most accomplished novel Huxley has yet written",[24] Joseph Needham lauded it as "Mr. Huxley's remarkable book",[25] and Bertrand Russell also praised it, stating, "Mr. Aldous Huxley has shown his usual masterly skill in Brave New World."[26]

text: However, Brave New World also received negative responses from other contemporary critics, although his work was later embraced.[27]

text: In an article in the 4 May 1935 issue of the Illustrated London News, G. K. Chesterton explained that Huxley was revolting against the "Age of Utopias". Much of the discourse on man's future before 1914 was based on the thesis that humanity would solve all economic and social issues. In the decade following the war the discourse shifted to an examination of the causes of the catastrophe. The works of H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw on the promises of socialism and a World State were then viewed as the ideas of naive optimists. Chesterton wrote:

text: After the Age of Utopias came what we may call the American Age, lasting as long as the Boom. Men like Ford or Mond seemed to many to have solved the social riddle and made capitalism the common good. But it was not native to us; it went with a buoyant, not to say blatant optimism, which is not our negligent or negative optimism. Much more than Victorian righteousness, or even Victorian self-righteousness, that optimism has driven people into pessimism. For the Slump brought even more disillusionment than the War. A new bitterness, and a new bewilderment, ran through all social life, and was reflected in all literature and art. It was contemptuous, not only of the old Capitalism, but of the old Socialism. Brave New World is more of a revolution against Utopia than against Victoria.[28]

text: Similarly, in 1944 economist Ludwig von Mises described Brave New World as a satire of utopian predictions of socialism: "Aldous Huxley was even courageous enough to make socialism's dreamed paradise the target of his sardonic irony."[29]

text: Fordism and society[edit]

text: The World State is built upon the principles of Henry Ford's assembly line: mass production, homogeneity, predictability, and consumption of disposable consumer goods. While the World State lacks any supernatural-based religions, Ford himself is revered as the creator of their society but not as a deity, and characters celebrate Ford Day and swear oaths by his name (e.g., "By Ford!"). In this sense, some fragments of traditional religion are present, such as Christian crosses, which had their tops cut off to be changed to a "T". The World State calendar numbers years in the "AF" era—"Anno Ford"—with the calendar beginning in AD 1908, the year in which Ford's first Model T rolled off his assembly line. The novel's Gregorian calendar year is AD 2540, but it is referred to in the book as AF 632.[citation needed]

text: From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep (called "hypnopædia" in the book) to believe their own class is superior, but that the other classes perform needed functions. Any residual unhappiness is resolved by an antidepressant and hallucinogenic drug called soma.

text: The biological techniques used to control the populace in Brave New World do not include genetic engineering; Huxley wrote the book before the structure of DNA was known. However, Gregor Mendel's work with inheritance patterns in peas had been rediscovered in 1900 and the eugenics movement, based on artificial selection, was well established. Huxley's family included a number of prominent biologists including Thomas Huxley, half-brother and Nobel Laureate Andrew Huxley, and his brother Julian Huxley who was a biologist and involved in the eugenics movement. Nonetheless, Huxley emphasises conditioning over breeding (nurture versus nature); human embryos and fetuses are conditioned through a carefully designed regimen of chemical (such as exposure to hormones and toxins), thermal (exposure to intense heat or cold, as one's future career would dictate), and other environmental stimuli, although there is an element of selective breeding as well.

text: Comparisons with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four [edit]

text: Social critic Neil Postman contrasted the worlds of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He writes:

text: What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that our fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

text: Journalist Christopher Hitchens, who himself published several articles on Huxley and a book on Orwell, noted the difference between the two texts in the introduction to his 1999 article "Why Americans Are Not Taught History":

text: We dwell in a present-tense culture that somehow, significantly, decided to employ the telling expression "You're history" as a choice reprobation or insult, and thus elected to speak forgotten volumes about itself. By that standard, the forbidding dystopia of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four already belongs, both as a text and as a date, with Ur and Mycenae, while the hedonist nihilism of Huxley still beckons toward a painless, amusement-sodden, and stress-free consensus. Orwell's was a house of horrors. He seemed to strain credulity because he posited a regime that would go to any lengths to own and possess history, to rewrite and construct it, and to inculcate it by means of coercion. Whereas Huxley ... rightly foresaw that any such regime could break because it could not bend. In 1988, four years after 1984, the Soviet Union scrapped its official history curriculum and announced that a newly authorized version was somewhere in the works. This was the precise moment when the regime conceded its own extinction. For true blissed-out and vacant servitude, though, you need an otherwise sophisticated society where no serious history is taught.[30]

text: Brave New World Revisited[edit]

text: Brave New World Revisited (Harper & Brothers, US, 1958; Chatto & Windus, UK, 1959),[31] written by Huxley almost thirty years after Brave New World, is a non-fiction work in which Huxley considered whether the world had moved toward or away from his vision of the future from the 1930s. He believed when he wrote the original novel that it was a reasonable guess as to where the world might go in the future. In Brave New World Revisited, he concluded that the world was becoming like Brave New World much faster than he originally thought.

text: Huxley analysed the causes of this, such as overpopulation, as well as all the means by which populations can be controlled. He was particularly interested in the effects of drugs and subliminal suggestion. Brave New World Revisited is different in tone because of Huxley's evolving thought, as well as his conversion to Hindu Vedanta in the interim between the two books.

text: The last chapter of the book aims to propose action which could be taken to prevent a democracy from turning into the totalitarian world described in Brave New World. In Huxley's last novel, Island, he again expounds similar ideas to describe a utopian nation, which is generally known as a counterpart to his most famous work.

text: Censorship/banning instances, accusation of plagiarism[edit]

text: The American Library Association ranks Brave New World as No. 52 on their list of most challenged books.[32] The following list includes some notable incidents in which it has been censored, banned, or challenged:

text:
In 1932, the book was banned in Ireland for its language, and for supposedly being anti-family and anti-religion.[33][34]
In 1965, a Maryland English teacher alleged that he was fired for assigning Brave New World to students. The teacher sued for violation of First Amendment rights but lost both his case and the appeal.[35]
The book was banned in India in 1967, with Huxley accused of being a "pornographer".[36]
In 1980, it was removed from classrooms in Miller, Missouri among other challenges.[37]
In 1982, Polish author Antoni Smuszkiewicz, in his analysis of Polish science-fiction Zaczarowana gra ("The Magic Game"), presented accusations of plagiarism against Huxley. Smuszkiewicz showed similarities between Brave New World and two science fiction novels written earlier by Polish author Mieczysław Smolarski, namely Miasto światłości ("The City of Light", 1924) and Podróż poślubna pana Hamiltona ("Mr Hamilton's Honeymoon Trip", 1928).[38] Smolarski wrote in his open letter to Huxley: "This work of a great author, both in the general depiction of the world as well as countless details, is so similar to two of my novels that in my opinion there is no possibility of accidental analogy."[39]
George Orwell claimed that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) must be partly derived from We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.[40] However, in a letter to Christopher Collins in 1962, Huxley says that he wrote Brave New World as a reaction to H. G. Wells's utopias long before he had heard of We.[12] According to one translator of We, Natasha Randall, Orwell believed that Huxley was lying.[13]
Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing Player Piano (1952), he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We".[41]
In 2010, the book was listed on the American Library Association's "Most Challenged Books" list.[42]

text: Related works[edit]

text: Previous[edit]

text:
The First Men in the Moon (1901) by H. G. Wells. A lunar population lives in a single harmonious society, where the offspring starts life in small containers. There it is decided what kind of caste they will belong to for the rest of their existence, and their development at this stage is influenced to make sure they fit their caste perfectly.
We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin. George Orwell claimed that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) must be partly derived from We.[40] However, in a letter to Christopher Collins in 1962, Huxley says that he wrote Brave New World as a reaction to H. G. Wells's utopias long before he had heard of We.[12] According to one translator of We, Natasha Randall, Orwell believed that Huxley was lying.[13]
Crome Yellow (1921) by Aldous Huxley. Looking forward to Brave New World, this earlier novel has Mr Scogan, a believer in "the goddess of Applied Science", looking forward optimistically to "the next few centuries" when "In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world."
Men Like Gods (1923) by H. G. Wells is a utopian novel that was a source of inspiration for Huxley's novel. Wells' earlier work, A Modern Utopia included the notion of a world state exiling dissidents to islands, where they would be free to live in ways unacceptable for the rest of the world.
The Scientific Outlook (1931) by philosopher Bertrand Russell. When Brave New World was released, Russell thought that Huxley's book was based on his book The Scientific Outlook, released the previous year. Russell contacted his own publisher and asked whether he should do something about this "apparent plagiarism". His publisher advised him not to, and Russell followed this advice.[43]

text: Following[edit]

text:
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell. The two novels are often compared and sometimes regarded as the greatest works depicting dystopias propagandized as "perfect" societies.
Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing Player Piano (1952) he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."[44]
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury
Walden Two (1948) by B. F. Skinner. Skinner was a Harvard psychologist who put his formal research in Operant Conditioning and Behaviorism into fictional practice by creating a utopian society based on these scientific principles.
THX 1138 (1971) the George Lucas film, depicts a dystopian future in which the populace is partially controlled through use of drugs.

text: Adaptations[edit]

text: Theatre[edit]

text: Brave New World (opened 4 September 2015) in co-production by Royal & Derngate, Northampton and Touring Consortium Theatre Company which toured the UK. The adaptation was by Dawn King, composed by These New Puritans and directed by James Dacre.

text: Radio[edit]

text:
Brave New World (radio broadcast) CBS Radio Workshop (27 January and 3 February 1956): music composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann. Adapted for radio by William Froug. Introduced by William Conrad and narrated by Aldous Huxley. Featuring the voices of Joseph Kearns, Bill Idelson, Gloria Henry, Charlotte Lawrence,[45] Byron Kane, Sam Edwards, Jack Kruschen, Vic Perrin, Lurene Tuttle, Herb Butterfield, Paul Hebert, Doris Singleton.[46]
Brave New World (radio broadcast) BBC Radio4 (May 2013)
Brave New World (radio broadcast) BBC Radio4 (22, 29 May 2016)

text: Film[edit]

text:
Brave New World (1980), a television film directed by Burt Brinckerhoff
Brave New World (1998), a television film directed by Leslie Libman and Larry Williams

text: Future adaptation[edit]

text: In 2009, Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio announced that they would collaborate on a new adaptation of the book.[47] However, as of 2013, the project has been on hold while Scott has been involved with other projects.[48]

text: Television[edit]

text: In May 2015, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment will bring Brave New World to the SyFy TV channel as a scripted series, written (adapted) by Les Bohem.[49]

text: Publications[edit]

text: Brave New World title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database:

text:
Brave New World

Aldous Huxley; Perennial, Reprint edition, 1 September 1998; ISBN 0-06-092987-1

Brave New World Revisited

Aldous Huxley; Perennial, 1 March 2000; ISBN 0-06-095551-1

Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited

Aldous Huxley (with a foreword by Christopher Hitchens); Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005; ISBN 0-06-077609-9

Brave New World & Brave New World Revisited

Aldous Huxley (with an introduction by Margaret Atwood); Vintage Canada Edition, 2007; ISBN 978-0-307-35655-0

Huxley's Brave New World (Cliffs Notes)

Charles and Regina Higgins; Cliffs Notes, 30 May 2000; ISBN 0-7645-8583-5

Spark Notes Brave New World

Sterling, 31 December 2003; ISBN 1-58663-366-X

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (Barron's Book Notes)

Anthony Astrachan, Anthony Astrakhan; Barrons Educational Series, November 1984; ISBN 0-8120-3405-8

text: Also publications for NSW HSC students.