Guillermo del Toro has more than a few projects on his plate as a writer, director and/or producer, but there is one project that is no longer on his radar: a live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson.
Deadline reports that del Toro has decided to step away from the project set up at Warner Bros. Although he will not be directing the movie, he will still remain on the project as a writer and as a producer, according to the report. The later role del Toro shares with Denise DiNovi.
With his departure, the studio has already began their search for their new director. The reason for the departure is being credited to scheduling problems, which is not hard to believe, seeing as there are more movies these days that del Toro is involved in than not, seemingly. Working on so many movies at once, del Toro may just not be ready to work on this movie at the moment, while the studio is thinking otherwise.
Considering that Disney has revealed about a week ago that they are making their own live-action version of Beauty and the Beast with Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) at the helm, Warner Bros. is likely pushing to make this movie of theirs as soon as possible. Whether or not del Toro is ready.
For the time being at least, it appears that Watson is still attached to star in the film as the titular female character.
After all, in addition to this, Warner Bros. is also competing with Disney with making a live-action The Jungle Book movie as well, with Andy Serkis directing on for WB, and Jon Favreau making one for Disney at the moment. Considering that Alejandro González Iñárritu was attached to that film before Serkis took over his chair, there is a good possibility that WB will find at least an interesting choice for replacing del Toro on this project.
At the moment, del Toro is in post-production on his haunted house flick Crimson Peak, which is supposed to hit theaters next October. He also directed some episodes of his upcoming TV series The Strain, which is set to premiere at the end of this month. Meanwhile, he told Collider more than a year ago that he already knows what his next project is. Whether or not that said project is truly next for the filmmaker is not certain.
Image courtesy of Peter West/ACE Pictures