Guillermo Del Toro Will Direct Emma Watson in Beauty & The Beast

Guillermo del Toro began developing his new take on "Beauty and the Beast" with Harry Potter actress Emma Watson this past July, and now a Variety update informs us that the monsterific Mexican helmer is moving full steam ahead on the fantasy re-imagining, setting it up at Warner Bros. Del Toro will now not only produce but he will also direct (awesome!), with scribe Andrew Davies ("The Three Musketeers", "Bridget Jones's Diary") set away to write a script from Del Toro's treatment. Based on the beloved Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve fairy tale that has already been adapted a thousand times with at least two classic productions (the Disney animated musical of the early 90's and the 40's Jean Cocteau directed French B&W magical film) that tells the story of Belle, the innocent young girl who finds herself trapped in the grotesque palace of a hideous beast, who we later find out has only taken that monstrous form because he is cursed. We think Del Toro's film will be period and live-action and we also have to believe that the idea is for Del Toro's usual collaborator and his very own Hellboy, Ron Perlman to once again play the Beast, having played the character in the contemporary t.v. show of the late 80€s that re-imagined the tragic monster (who lived in the sewers) with the beauty a NY attorney (Linda Hamilton) which you just know Del Toro has seen that a thousand times. There is of course a four decade age gap between Watson (22 next month) and Perlman (62 next month) but how can Del Toro make this most famous of Gothic fables and not have Perlman playing the character? Actually maybe four decades would be too much for Warner Bros but with heavy make-up Perlman can look at least a decade, if not more, younger in the beast form. Del Toro is currently filming his Asian set high-concept movie Pacific Rim for Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures which is due for release next year, probably meaning Beauty & The Beast will be a go project in the summer of 2013. This of course isn't the first Beauty & The Beast adaptation currently in the works as fairy tale productions are the new fad every studio has flocked to ever since Alice in Wonderland broke the billion dollar barrier. ABC and CW respectively are both attempting to bring the fairy tale to the small screen, whilst we only reported a couple of days ago that Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf, Silent Hill) is making an English/French production of the fairy tale that kicks off in October with Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux in the leading roles.