What kind of animal is the beast of Gevaudan, exactly?
In the 2001 French film, Brotherhood of the Wolf, we don't get to see the actual animal. Any hints or clues from any scene of the movie that can tell us what kind of animal the beast was?
Best Answer
The only times we ever get to see the supposed "Beast of Gévaudan" in the movie is in his armor/disguise, so it is really hard to tell what real animal was actually under this elaborate construction. The only hints we get from the movie, is that Jean-François brought it from his travels and from looking at the eyes I always assumed it was a tiger, albeit a somewhat unnaturally large one.
But Wikipedia is a bit more exact, claiming that it was a lion:
It turns out the beast was an offspring of a "strange beast" that Jean-François brought back from Africa (which director Christophe Gans insists is a lion). It was tortured into becoming vicious, trained to attack humans, and dressed in metal armor plating and spikes along with a large mask and metal implants in its jaw to make it more formidable and frightening.
And the interview with Christophe Gans on which Wikipedia's claim is grounded makes it quite explicit:
A.M: What about the beast? Where did it come from?
C.G: Well it's a lion!
A.M: A lion?? the eye seemed more like a wolf ?!
C.G: No it's a lion, it's supposed to be a lion, Jean-François de Morangias (Cassel) brought it back from Africa, plus in the movie, deFronsac says "it's a beast in an arnor", so it's fare to assume that the unground people gave it it's armor... But you know, it's not supposed to be realistic...
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What was the Beast of Gévaudan?
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