Disney: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Remake + Emma Watson Not ‘Cinderella’

Here’s a strange web of interconnected news. Just at the end of last month we learned that Emma Watson was in talks for the title role in a live-action version of Disney’s famous fairytale Cinderella. However, Variety reports that she is no longer taking the role. The move did seem surprising since Watson was said to be part of a new take on Beauty and the Beast with Guillermo del Toro producing. In a strange twist, there’s news that Disney is working on their own live-action version of the familiar tale with they turned into the first animated Best Picture nominee in 1991. Sounds like they want to beat del Toro to the punch. Deadline has word that Disney has tapped writer Joe Ahearne, the British writer who worked on Danny Boyle’s new thriller Trance, to write a film called The Beast. The title alone seems to throw the fairytale nature of the story aside, and bringing on a writer like …