Del Toro to Helm "Beauty & the Beast" Movie

Guillermo del Toro is now attached to direct a feature film adaptation of Beauty and the Beast written by Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones Diary) starring Emma Watson (Harry Potter). The movie is set up at Warner Bros., and it should be noted that there are already two competing Beauty and the Beast TV series based on the public domain fairy tale property currently in development.

Of course the fact that Del Toro is currently attached to the project doesn’t mean that it will be made or if it is that he will end up directing it. The list of projects that the protean director has been involved with is lengthy and includes high profile films like The Hobbit.

As The Hollywood Reporter points out, Del Toro is currently spread pretty thin. He is currently filming Pacific Rim, and is attached to direct a Trollhunters animated movie for Dreamworks, a Haunted Mansion movie for Disney plus Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Universal.

Del Toro Helming Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro is now booked with films through 2017, including remakes of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Slaughterhouse-Five, Variety reported.

Universal Pictures--which has a three-year first-look deal with the director--and del Toro are making a long-term commitment by setting up four directing projects, including the aforementioned movies.

The fourth project is an adaptation of Drood, a Dan Simmons novel that will be published in February by Little, Brown.

Del Toro's first priority is New Line and MGM's The Hobbit and its sequel, to which he has committed the next five years. He has begun writing Hobbit with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, collaborating via video conferencing and trips to New Zealand every three weeks.

While it's difficult to plan projects five years into the future, at this point Universal executives told the trade paper that Drood, based on the life of Charles Dickens, is the most likely to be del Toro’s first post-Hobbit directing vehicle.

Universal also still has its sights set on del Toro's pet project, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.

Also on the horizon: David Moody's apocalyptic novel Hater, which del Toro will produce with Mark Johnson but not direct, and Crimson Peak, a gothic romance spec script by del Toro and his Mimic collaborator Matthew Robbins, which del Toro will produce but not direct. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)