According to Emma Watson, speaking to MTV, she’ll be shooting Beauty and the Beast next summer. The actress – who is appearing in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Bling Ring next – said she’s met with director Guillermo del Toro and seen his conceptual look book for the project.

“We met a week or two ago, and we started working on the script, and it’s going to go next summer. It’s so funny; obviously I’ve been doing a lot of other work, and I was nervous. I was like, ‘Is this going to go away?’ And Guillermo is so psyched about it, and he’s, like, been thinking about it so much. “He brought the book. I was like, ‘Ah, this is killing me.’ I’m very excited.”

As she should be. As we all should be. Hopefully everything comes together to make this schedule a reality. However, it would mean the proposed summer 2013 start date for del Toro’s take on Pinocchio (which, oddly enough, stars Watson’s Harry Potter co-star Daniel Radcliffe) would be pushed. Or maybe del Toro will attempt to take on a live-action and an animated project at the same time. All of this will shake out, but the core point here is that del Toro is steadily, actively getting the stuff on his plate made, and that’s a glorious thing. I can think of few things better than seeing Pacific Rim in July and seeing del Toro start production on something new a week later.