Luke Evans' Beauty and the Beast Disney+ Prequel Series Was Just 'Put on Hold'

We've got some bad news for you, Beauty and the Beast stans...

Disney+'s previously announced and highly-anticipated musical prequel seriesLittle Town, which was set to follow the misadventures of Gaston (played by out heartthrob Luke Evans) and his best friend LeFou (Josh Gad) is, unfortunately, not going to be happening any time soon.

According to close, unnamed sources to the situation, as reported by Deadline, the call to put the series, which was initially set to start to filming and production later this summer in the U.K., on hold was made "for creative reasons, with the scripts and original music not coming together in the direction expected and running behind schedule."

Josh Gad, who played Gaston's infamous sidekick LeFou in the live-action Beauty and the Beast film in 2017 where he was portrayed as gay, took to Twitter shortly after the development was announced to break the heartbreaking news to Disney fans.

"Sadly, 'tis true," Gad wrote. "We tried to make it all work but under the gun, it wasn't meant to be...for now. These characters and this story will live on, but sometimes the best intentions and reality collide and nothing can be done."

He continued:

"We truly hope we get to make it when our schedules allow."

The move to put Little Town on ice is quite a shocking one, especially since the last thing we heard of the production was the good news of gay actor and Marvel Studios' Hawkeye alum Fra Free being cast in the show to play Prince Benoit Berlioz, who is described as "a childhood friend of Tilly's who has grown into a handsome, charismatic, confident prince."

"Thrilled to be joining this," Free said in a statement on Twitter at the time of his casting. "The wee lad who watched the beast turn into the prince repeatedly on VHS is even more so."

"So excited to have the brilliant [Fra Free] joining the epic team for our #BeautyAndTheBeast Prequel series," Gad added. "He was so damn good in Hawkeye and we are beyond thrilled to have him."

Created by Once Upon a Time's Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis with Respect's Liesl Tommy set to direct, Little Town was looking to be a fun, and queer AF, new inclusion into the canon of beloved Disney projects, but sometimes, things just don't work out!

Hopefully, the stars will align once again, and we'll get to see Evans, Gad, and Free back in action in Little Town one day...

RELATED | Disney+ Is Creating a Series Based on This Queer YA Novel