Don’t bother Guillermo Del Toro. You can’t ask him to bowl with you on Saturday night, and even if he wants to, he won’t be able to show up to your poker party because damn it, the man is just so damn talented and now he is so damn busy. According to Variety, he’s practically booked until the year 2017.
Universal Pictures will bombard him with one movie project after another, it will become the very essence of his existence. It’s like breathing air, there’s no stopping now. So if you try to leave voicemail messages in his cell phone, he probably won’t reply until… oo I dunno.. how bout.. 9 years later!!
Here’s a list of the movies that he’ll be involved in the following years to come. God speed, GDT!
MOVIES THAT HE WILL DIRECT
1. THE HOBBIT
This will take at least five years of his life. The movie comes in two parts, the script is ambitious because it’s written by Del Toro plus LOTR team: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and they’re collaborating via video conferencing and trips to New Zealand every three weeks
All that work, money, energy and the years put into this movie, it better be something extraordinary. Expectations are high on this one and there are fans they need to please.
2. DROODS
At least in the minds of Universal execs, this will most likely be Del Toro’s post-Hobbit project.
It’s based on a novel by author Dan Simmons. The story supposes that survival from a catastrophic train crash changed author Charles Dickens, plunging him into the depths of London depravity and possibly turning him to murder before he wrote his final novel, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”
3. FRANKENSTEIN The Remake
So many versions of this story have been made ever since the early years of Cinema, but we haven’t seen made through the vision of GDT. There’s a theme in the story that fascinates him…
“To me, Frankenstein represents the essential human question: ‘Why did my creator throw me here, unprotected, unguided, unaided and lost?’ ” del Toro said. “With that one, they will have to pry it from my cold dead hands to prevent me from directing it.”
Back in June he said that he would like one of his favorite actors, Doug Jones to play the Monster in the remake
Doug Jones is the freakishly tall actor who plays Abe Sapien in Hellboy movies and the Fauno in Pan’s Labyrinth.
4. Dr. JEKYLL AND Mr. HYDE The Remake
As long as GDT makes his version look better than the one in the movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I think it should be okay.
Del Toro wants to stick more closely to Robert Louis Stevenson’s prose and explore the addictive high the repressed Jekyll experienced as his murderous alter ego.
By the way, Robert Louis Stevenson is the Scottish author who wrote the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, first published in 1886. The story is about a London lawyer who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll and the misanthropic Edward Hyde. The work is known for its vivid portrayal of the psychopathology of a split personality
5. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE The Remake
Okay, frankly, I’m not familiar with this particular title and I’ve never seen the 1972 movie version of the novel but the story or at least the concept sounds intriguing. It’s about a prisoner in a German WWII POW camp who travels through time and space
Didn’t the Outer Limits TV series already cover that?
6. AT THE MOUNTAIN OF MADNESS
Early this year, before he got officially hired to helm THE HOBBIT, this project was one of the gazillion things that he wanted to do. It’s one of his personal favorites for years. By author H.P. Lovercraft, originally published in 1936, the story is about a group of explorers in Antartica who stumble onto a group of creatures called “Elder Things” and what comes after that is terror after terror. Giullermo’s cup of tea.
7. HELLBOY 3
Guillermo Del Toro is waiting to see if Universal would like to approve the budget for the third installment.
Domestically HELLBOY II: The Golden Army only earned a disappointing $75 Million due to the unfortunate fact that the movie was released a week before The Dark Knight.
But worldwide, it actually earned a total of about $100.9 Million. Would that be enough for Universal to wanna take another risk and fund HELLBOY 3?
GDT seems to be very much on board if the plan goes into action.
“We laid the groundwork to have a magnificent third act. I’d like to return to an action franchise with 60-year-old actor Ron Perlman, because he’ll be scratching at that age when I get to it.”
gee..Let’s just hope old timer Ron Perlman will still be physically up to the task when time comes around.
MOVIES THAT DEL TORO WILL PRODUCE BUT NOT DIRECT
8. HATER
An adaptation of David Moody’s apocalyptic novel that has this for the plot…
Society is rocked by a sudden increase in the number of violent assaults on individuals. Christened ‘Haters’ by the media, the attackers strike without warning. Their attacks are brutal, remorseless and extreme. There are no apparent links between the Haters or their victims and no obvious reason for their violence. In seconds rational, controlled people become vicious killers. Everyone – irrespective of race, gender, age, sexuality or any other imaginable difference – has the potential to become either a Hater or a victim. This is a terror which knows no boundaries. You can no longer trust anyone, no matter how well you think you know them. You can no longer trust yourself. By the end of today you could be a killer. By the end of today you could be dead.
Del Toro will produce with Mark Johnson
9. CRIMSON PEAK
A gothic romance spec script by del Toro and his “Mimic” collaborator Matthew Robbins
