<P> Principal photography on the film began at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England, on May 18, 2015 . Filming with the principal actors concluded on August 21 . Six days later, co-producer Jack Morrissey confirmed that the film had officially wrapped production . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> 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' 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 . </P> <P> 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". </P>

The beast out of beauty and the beast