“The Perks Of Being A Wallflower” star Emma Watson is probably feeling a lot like she looks in the above photo: annoyed with a touch of exasperated, “c’mon, really?” Because her director-to-be, Guillermo del Toro, has dropped out of helming “Beauty & The Beast.” Did the recent announcement of Disney’s live-action reimagining of the project kill it, you ask? Nope, Warner Bros. is still going ahead with the project, they’ll just have to do it with a new director.
Why did del Toro drop out? Why does he drop out of half the projects he’s attached to direct? Because like folks like Ridley Scott or Leonardo DiCaprio, del Toro tends to over-commit to projects that run long and then he realizes he’ll never be able to make the 16,000 projects he had in development (remember his “Frankenstein” movie at Universal that didn’t go anywhere for a random, off-the-top-of-my-head example?).
WB is currently looking for new directors to take over and Watson is apparently still attached. But del Toro’s DNA will still be all over the movie. He wrote the script and he’s still producing the movie. But that can be said for a lot of GdT-produced movies (remember “Mama”?). We’re not saying that a live-action revisionist take of “Beauty & The Beast” written and produced by del Toro isn’t interesting, but it might just end up like one of the many watered-down projects he’s handed off to other filmmakers in his stead. Next for del Toro is “Crimson Peak” starring Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska and Charlie Hunnam. That one recently wrapped, so you’ll actually see that one sometime in 2015. And a “Pacific Rim 2” script is moving forward, but we wouldn’t count on that one just yet. [Deadline]