Will the 'Beauty and the Beast' Disney+ Prequel Focus on LeFou's Coming Out?

Actor Josh Gad spoke with Variety this week and opened up about the upcoming "Beauty and the Beast" spinoff series headed to Disney+. The series will follow baddies Gaston (played by out actor Luke Evans in the 2017 Bill Condon live-action Disney film) and his buddy LeFou (played by Gad) and their friendship.

At the time of that film's release, there was a lot of attention paid to LeFou, in the remake, becoming one of the first openly gay Disney characters. But Variety wondered if the upcoming show, which is a prequel, will have a storyline about LeFou's "coming out journey."

"You're going to have to tune in when this show airs to see what we're working up, but in the process of working on it, we're asking ourselves every relevant question about these characters and endeavoring to do right by them and by this world," Gad revealed on the "Just for Variety" podcast. "I think that we have origin stories here that are unbelievably exciting because they're unexpected. And I think 'expect the unexpected' is all I can really say. And not just with regard to LeFou and Gaston but to a lot of the new characters that we're introducing."

Gad went on to joke that he needs to work on his fitness after seeing Evans' super-sexy thirst traps.

"It requires me to get in the gym fairly soon because I've seen pictures of my co-star online. And let's just say it ain't great what I'm working with in terms of the most shredded man in show business," he quipped.

The 2017 live-action remake of "Beauty and the Beast" caused a stir at the time when a blink-or-you-miss it "gay moment" became a talking point of the new film. The scene in question featured Gad's LeFou quickly mentioning that he has a crush on Evans' hunky Gaston. A number of ultra-right and religious conservatives took issue with the film, with many people calling for a boycott of the remake. Nevertheless, "Beauty and the Beast" went on to gross more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

"(Director) Bill Condon did an amazing job of giving us an opportunity to create a version of LeFou that isn't like the original ... but that makes him more human and makes him a wonderfully complex character to some extent," Gad told The Associated Press at the time. "And there's a moment at the end of the film that I don't want to ruin ... because I want the surprise to be intact, but I'm very proud of it. I think it's an incredible moment and it's subtle, but I think it's effective."