A beauty but a funny girl! Disney has found its next princess in former Hogwarts spell caster Emma Watson. On Monday, Jan. 26, the company announced that the British actress, 24, would be playing Belle in a new live-action Beauty and the Beast.
The film will be directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2) and produced by David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman (The Proposal) of Mandeville Films. Production for the upcoming flick is set to begin later this year.
This certainly isn’t the first time the beloved animated tale of the French book smart towns girl and the tortured prince-turned-Beast has been brought to life.
The CW’s Beauty & the Beast series starring Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan has been running for three seasons, and in 2011, Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer starred as the lovers in the box office flop Beastly.
There were also several TV shows and films in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s dedicated to the Disney tale. And the classic 1946 adaptation from Jean Cocteau. The story originated in 1756 as a fairy tale written by French novelist Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.
Watson, who has appeared in several films since the Potter series wrapped in 2011, is currently serving as the Goodwill Ambassador for U.N. Women, specifically advocating the “HeForShe” campaign. Intelligent, pretty, and headstrong? Sounds like a certain French girl we know…?
