Guillermo Del Toro is attached to direct Beauty And The Beast, as well as produce the movie which also stars Emma Watson. The original notion for Beauty And The Beast was to do a straight forward adaption of Beauty: A Retelling Of The Story Of The Beauty And The Beast by Robin McKinley.
The synopsis for the book from amazon is
Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in looks, she can perhaps make up for in courage.
When her father comes home with the tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must go to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father protests that he will not let her go, but she answers, "Cannot a Beast be tamed?"
Now though, Three Musketeers scriptwriter Andrew Davies is onboard to push the story in a new direction, whatever that might be.
