Guillermo del Toro to direct ‘Beauty’ and the Beast

'Bridget Jones' scribe will pen script for Warner Bros.

Guillermo del Toro will direct “Beast,” a new take on the “Beauty and the Beast” tale that Warners has tapped “Bridget Jones’s Diary” scribe Andrew Davies to write.

WB’s “Harry Potter” star Emma Watson is in final negotiations to topline the period pic. Del Toro was originally on board just to produce.

DiNovi Pictures’ Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan will produce with del Toro, who plans to write a treatment from which Davies will work.

Del Toro, who’s currently filming “Pacific Rim” for WB and Legendary Pictures, is credited as a co-writer on both of WB’s upcoming “Hobbit” movies. He recently exec produced Universal’s “Mama” and DreamWorks Animation’s “Rise of the Guardians.”

Having wrapped her long-running role as Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” pics, Watson will next reteam with “Deathly Hallows” director David Yates. She co-stars in “My Week With Marilyn” and will soon be seen in Summit’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”

Davies, who wrote “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and its 2004 sequel, most recently penned “The Three Musketeers” and “Brideshead Revisited.”

WME reps both del Toro and Watson, who are also respectively repped by Exile Entertainment and U.K.-based Markham, Froggatt and Irwin. Davies is repped by CAA.