Harry Potter producer David Heyman has found a new beloved literary character to bring to movie theaters.  According to THR, Paul King will direct a live-action/CGI-animated adaptation based on the children's book character Paddington Bear.  For those unfamiliar with Paddington, Michael Bond’s best selling books center on "a brown bear from Peru who is found at Paddington station by the Brown family."  Paddington also wears an adorable raincoat and hat.  I'm not sure why it can't be a straight-up animated film, but I guess children will have seizures if they don't see live-action humans interacting with a CGI creature in a family film.  Of course, I could be getting it wrong with this adaptation.  Perhaps Paddington will be live-action and the family will be CGI-animated, in which case this film would be brilliant.

Hit the jump for more on Paddington Bear, and click here for what Heyman told Steve about the project last year.

Per Wikipedia, here's some more info on Paddington Bear:

Paddington is an anthropomorphised bear. He is always polite—always addressing people as "Mr.", "Mrs." and "Miss" and very rarely by first names—and well-meaning, though he inflicts hard stares on those who incur his disapproval. He likes marmalade sandwiches and cocoa, and has an endless capacity for getting into trouble. However, he is known to "try so hard to get things right". He is an adoptive member of the (human) Brown family, and thus gives his full name as Paddington Brown.

It's very cute, and I trust that Heyman will retain the character's charm rather than try to make him hip and edgy in an attempt to appeal to cynical kids.  While you could argue Disney attempted that approach with last year's Winnie the Pooh, keep in mind that the 2D animated film opened the same weekend as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.