With Maleficent racking up an impressive $170M opening weekend, and following the $1B of Alice in Wonderland, Disney is more gung-ho than ever about bringing their fairy tales back to the screen in live-action form. About a year ago we learned of their plans to adapt Beauty and the Beast, and in April it was suggested that Bill Condon (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) might be its director. Turns out that story was true as Condon has now been confirmed.
Condon, who is coming off the Wikileaks drama nobody saw, The Fifth Estate, will direct Beauty and the Beast from a script by Evan Spiliotopoulos. Spiliotopoulos is the writer behind some of Disney's straight-to-DVD sequels, including Tarzan 2 and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. Whether this will be a straight adaptation or a version told from a different perspective like Maleficent is unclear.
Disney's next live-action adaptation will be Cinderella, which opens next March. That will be followed by Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book. [Variety]
