Bill Condon Confirmed as Director of Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast'

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]

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Bill Condon May Direct Disney's Live-Action 'Beauty and the Beast'

Disney continues on with their plan to adapt many of their animated classics into live-action, and we can probably expect they'll get to all of them eventually. Alice in Wonderland's $1B haul is a pretty good reason to soldier on, and so we've got Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and possibly another 101 Dalmatians coming up. But next on Disney's list is Beauty and the Beast, the story of a woman who falls in love with a monster. So it only makes sense they'd look to 'Breaking Dawn' director, Bill Condon, for the directing job.

A tweet by Filmdivider says to expect Condon to direct Beauty and the Beast, which Disney got moving on last year with the hiring of Joe Aherne (Trance) to begin work on the screenplay. Bear in mind this has nothing to do with the Guillermo Del Toro version that has been kicking around for awhile. That one had Emma Watson attached to it at one point, and she may still be involved if it ever gets going. Lea Seydoux and Vincent Cassel are also starring in a live-action version of the story over in France, directed by Christophe Gans. Hopefully that one will make it here to America.

As for Condon, he's been around a long time and has been generally successful despite not being the most inventive of filmmakers. He directed the final two chapters of the Twilight Saga, Dreamgirls, the Kinsey biopic with Liam Neeson, Gods and Monsters, and last year's underwhelming Wikileaks thriller The 5th Estate. He's a logical yet uninspiring choice, just as choosing Kenneth Branagh for Cinderella was.

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Ian McKellen to Play Sherlock Holmes in Bill Condon's 'A Slight Trick of the Mind'

As the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off today, much of the attention will be on the diverse slate of films making, in some cases, their worldwide debut. But as is always the case at these events, there are also deals being struck behind the scenes, and a new one will have Sir Ian McKellen playing a retired Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind.

McKellen will reteam with his Gods and Monsters director Bill Condon on the film, which features a script by The Duchess writer Jeffrey Hatcher. The story takes place in 1947 and follows an aging, mentally waning Holmes as he's haunted by an unsolved case from fifty years earlier. This will obviously be a very different Holmes than we've been seeing of late, as portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., Condon's The Fifth Estate star Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jonny Lee Miller.  There's also a role for Holmes' housekeeper and her son, who happens to be an amateur detective and will probably take on a Watson-esque role.

McKellen will be keeping busy as Gandalf in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and as Magneto in X-men: Days of Future Past. Filming on A Slight Trick of the Mind will kick off next April.

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Maggie Grace joins The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn

Add another sexy vamp to the cast of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. Maggie Grace(Taken) has signed on to play Irina, a member of the Denali coven. The Denalis are considered the cousins of the Cullen clan since they don't gnosh on human blood either.

Irina comes to blame the Cullens for the death of her lover, setting into motion a "terrifying chain of events".

Grace is forging herself a nice career in mostly supporting roles ever since she left Lost back in 2007(?). Most prominently she appeared as Liam Neeson's daughter in Taken. She can be seen next in the Dwayne Johnson thriller, Faster.

The first half of Breaking Dawn releases on November 18th, 2011. The series concludes the following year on November 16th.

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Buck up, Boys! The Twilight national nightmare is nearly over

Summit Entertainment has finally set a release date for the conclusion to the Twilight series. The 2nd half of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn will hit theaters on November 16th, 2012. I've already got it marked on my calandar, surrounded by little balloons, wine bottles, and fireworks.

The first half of the Bill Condon directed finale bears it's fangs a year earlier, on November 18th 2011. So we've still got a ways to go until this whole thing can be pushed into the furthest recesses of our minds.

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DREAMGIRLS Director to Helm The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn?

It's looking more and more likely that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn is going to get that A-list director Summit Entertainment has been desperately seeking. A few weeks ago there was a story that Summit had approached a number of top notch candidates to direct the final two films that would comprise Breaking Dawn. That list included Sofia Coppola(Lost in Translation), Bill Condon(Dreamgirls), Gus Van Sant(Paranoid Park), and Fernando Meirelles(City of God). Now Deadline is reporting that Condon has emerged as the lead dog to secure the job.

Condon has apparently had discussions with the studio that went very well, and he's been given the seal of approval by Twilight creator, Stephanie Meyer.

Well, Condon is certainly an interesting choice. I still think Coppola would be the best fit creatively, but I think it might actually be too high profile for her. From what I've heard, Breaking Dawn is an absolutely wild story, so I'm curious to see how he is going to approach it if all this pans out.

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A-List Directors Being Approached to Direct BREAKING DAWN?

It looks like Summit isn't messing around when it comes to finding someone to direct the final installment to The Twilight Saga, titled Breaking Dawn. Entertainment Weekly is reporting that three directors have already been approached for the gig: Sofia Coppola(Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides), Bill Condon(Dreamgirls), and Gus Van Sant(Good Will Hunting, Milk).

The hope is to deliver a final script, penned by Melissa Rosenberg, to the directors by next week to help gauge their interest. Breaking Dawn is expected to be broken up into two films, so it would be in Summit's best interest to lock up the helmer as early as possible.

Obviously, since Lost in Translation is counted among my favorite movies of all time, it's of interest to me to think that she might lend her considerable talents to a franchise that I loathe. She does seem particularly suited to it, though, considering Twilight is full of angst riddled teens and forbidden love. The other two directors don't really strike me as fitting the mold.  I'll be very interested in seeing where this goes. 

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