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Leighton Meester: A Beauty and the Beastly

The Gossip Girl starlet wants to shoot not one, but at least two movies in between seasons of her hit TV show

By Marc Malkin Mar 13, 2009 6:35 PMTags
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With the ink just dry on Leighton Meester's deal to star in the upcoming thriller The Roommate, I hear she's already looking to film a second movie when this season's Gossip Girl finishes shooting later this spring.

A source tells me that Meester is the frontrunner to headline CBS Films' Beastly, a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Zac Efron was reportedly once up to play Beastly's male lead, a 17-year-old looking for love who is turned into a monster by a fellow classmate.

"Leighton really wants to do it," the source says. "They're trying to figure out how she could do the two movies before she starts shooting another season of Gossip Girl."

The movie, based on Alex Finn's young-adult supernatural novel of the same name, is written  and will be directed by Daniel Barnz. This would be his second film. His first, Sundance Film Festival hit Phoebe in Wonderland, was released earlier this month.

But what about the album Meester has been recording? A source says she's still in the studio while her team continues to work on landing her a record deal at one of the major labels.

It was announced earlier this week that Meester will star in The Roommate as Rebecca, a college freshman who becomes dangerously obsessed with her dorm roommate. Christian E. Christiansen is directing.

No comment yet from Meester and Barnz reps.