Alan Menken confirmed in a recent interview with Young Artists of America that he is working on new songs for the upcoming Disney+ Beauty and the Beast prequel series. The show is developed by Eddy Kitsis & Adam Horowitz (Once Upon a Time, Lost, Amazing Stories) and will star Josh Gad and Luke Evans who are reprising their roles from 2017’s live-action version. The 6-part limited series is set before the events of the film and will tell the origin story of Gaston and LeFou. Gad, Kitsis and Horowitz are writing all scripts for the project and are also executive producing the ABC Signature Studios production. Menken has scored and composed two new songs for the 2017 movie, which also featured Menken’s & Howard Ashman’s songs from the 1990 animated classic. The Beauty and the Beast prequel series is currently in development.
As previously reported, Menken has also composed new songs (with Lin-Manuel Miranda) and will score Disney’s upcoming The Little Mermaid live-action movie and is working on songs for the Enchanted sequel Disenchanted. He is also working with John Lasseter on an animated movie for Skydance Media.