‘Harry Potter’ star Emma Watson cast as Belle for new live-action ‘Beauty and the Beast’ film

Disney continues to move ahead with live-action remakes of their classic fairy tales, Cinderella arrives in March, and now Emma Watson has been cast to headline the studio’s Beauty and the Beast.

The film will be directed by Bill Condon (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn), but has not yet been given a release date. Watson expressed her excitement the lead role on her Facebook page.

“The character is everything that I felt really strongly against – she’s superficial, materialistic, vain, amoral…But I found it really interesting and it gave me a whole new insight into what my job, or my role as an actress, could be.”

The 1994 animated classic broke the glass ceiling and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Disney’s “self-reboots” continues, following in the footsteps of its recent films like Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent, its live-action fairytale remake of Cinderella (due in theaters March 13th), and the upcoming remake of The Jungle Book (2016).

With the schedule pretty full, Beauty and the Beast won’t likely arrive in theaters until 2017, but expect more news to follow.

‘Beauty and the Beast’ was the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (first animated film to be adapted into a Broadway Muscial)