Is There a Harry Potter Easter Egg in Beauty and the Beast?

Beauty and the Beast is opening this weekend in theaters around the world.  Naturally the hype is being accelerated for the film and you can expect more theories and news like this throughout the week and right on through to the movie’s release.   Emma Watson is playing Belle in the film so naturally all the Harry Potter fans out there are looking for any and every possible way to make a connection to the Harry Potter films.   In the last 48 hours fans think that they’ve found that Harry Potter Easter egg they were looking for.   The moment comes during the song “Belle.” During the number, Belle runs into a townsman named Monsieur Jean. Belle asks Jean if he’s forgotten something and Jean replies, “I believe I have. The problem, I can’t remember what!”

According to Comic Book

Fans have noticed that Jean’s line is similar to one of Neville Longbottom’s lines from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The line comes during a scene in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. Hermione notes that Neville has a Remembrall, saying, “I’ve read about those. When the smoke turns red, it means you’ve forgotten something,” to which Neville replies, “The only problem is I can’t remember what I’ve forgotten.”

However, director Bill Condon says this was never intended to be a reference to Harry Potter, and that the similarities in the lines are purely coincidental. In truth, the line is meant to show how the spell placed on the Beast’s castle by the Enchantress has affected the townspeople.

“I saw those rumors,” Condon tells Metro. “It wasn’t intentional. It really is just — at the beginning of the movie [The Enchantress] is narrating and she says ‘They were forgotten by the world and all the people who love them.’

“That’s just an example that pays off later. You always get the sense that [Mr. Potts] has forgotten something, but it’s something else he’s forgotten. So no.”

Sorry fans, if the director says it wasn’t intended then it wasn’t intended.   The search will undoubtedly go on to find a Harry Potter connection, but so far Bill Condon hasn’t revealed anything to suggest that the Disney film and Potter books or movies are connected in any way.