A $447 Million Film Emma Watson Refused to Star In Ended Up with 6 Oscars
But at least her old dream came true!
Summary
- In 2017, Emma Watson played the role of Belle in Beauty and the Beast.
- However, the original plan was for her to star in the Oscar-winning La La Land in the role that Emma Stone ended up in.
- Still, Watson has few regrets, as Belle was her dream role.
Emma Watson has long since overcome the curse of typecasting: While starring as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series, she began landing other roles, including the 2007 TV movie Ballet Shoes, and tried her hand at voice acting in 2008's The Tale of Despereaux. And after appearing in 2012's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Watson has been touted as an incredibly talented dramatic actress.
Her fame has also earned Watson an incredibly impressive net worth. Where are we going with this? To the fact that Watson has the privilege of deciding for herself what projects she wants to land. As such, playing the iconic European fairy tale character cost Watson another role that could have earned her an Oscar and one of the highest salaries in feature cinema per se.
Emma Watson traded places with another Emma, Stone, but no amount of money and academic praise can compare to the opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream.
Emma Watson Swapped Places with Emma Stone
In 2017, Disney released one of the last successful live-action adaptations of its iconic animated films, a new iteration of Beauty and the Beast. The musical was an incredible critical and commercial success. It earned Disney an incredible $1.266 billion at the worldwide box office against a budget of $160-255 million (recall that Disney films whose budgets fall into this category are now commercial failures, failing to break even at the box office).
However, parallel to Beauty and the Beast, in 2015, Watson was invited to play the lead role in another musical film, La La Land. But the actress was unwavering in her decision to play the role of Belle instead of Mia.
'When they offered me Belle, I just felt the character resonated with me so much more than Cinderella did,' Watson explained in 2017. 'She remains curious, compassionate, and open-minded. And that's the kind of woman I would want to embody as a role model, given the choice.'
A Lifelong Decision That the Actress Hardly Regrets
Although Beauty and the Beast was a much bigger commercial success than La La Land, Emma Watson earned much less than Emma Stone. For the role of Belle, Watson received approximately $15 million ($3 million base salary and $12 million as a percentage of the box office). Emma Stone, on the other hand, was paid $26 million for her role, according to Forbes.
And while Watson won several awards for her performance as Belle, that doesn't compare at all to the fact that Stone won a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Mia, and the film itself was the frontrunner for awards, picking up as many as six. It's worth noting that Gosling was also attached to play the Beast, but the actor opted to star in La La Land.
Yet Watson has few regrets. She has played a role with which she identifies and through which she can project the image of a compassionate and non-judgmental role model to millions of children around the world.
At the same time, being paid less than Stone has hardly affected the actress in any way: Emma Watson's net worth is $85 million (most of it from the Harry Potter films), while Emma Stone's is just $40 million. When money is no longer the main argument, creativity comes first!
Source: Grazia, Celebrity Net Worth.