Expect to see Guadalajara-born horror/fantasy genre movie director and producer Guillermo del Toro featured heavily in the entertainment sections of newspapers and websites during 2013.
His first directorial offering for four years, “Pacific Rim,” a Godzilla-meets-Transformers monster movie, will be released on May 10.
He calls the epic his “most un-modest film” to date and one that “has everything.”
The film involves giant monsters traveling through a vortex in the Pacific Rim where they attack major cities. Humans attempt to battle them by using suits called jaegers.
Del Toro’s most financially successful films, “Hellboy” and “Blade,” have been based on comic book characters.
But his most critically acclaimed films, “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the “Devil’s Backbone,” have been dark Spanish-language fantasies.
More in keeping with these two films is the horror flick “Mama,” produced by del Toro and opening on January 18. The film stars the increasingly popular U.S. actress Jessica Chastain as the foster mother of two young girls who were found living in the woods after their parents’ deaths.This week del Toro released an online version of the original Spanish-language short directed by Andres Muschietti that inspired the full length feature. It can be viewed on YouTube (just type “Del Toro introduces Mama” into the search box).
Del Toro calls it “one of the scariest little scenes I’ve every seen.”
Talking recently to Guadalajara daily Mural, del Toro said having two daughters of his own made the project even more fascinating. “Maternal love is a persistent source of destructive or constructive strength or horror, depending on what kind of family you are in, he said. “I find it ridiculous that society tells women that in order to be happy they have to be a mother or a wife.”
Del Toro, 48, who was schooled at Guadalajara’s Instituto de Ciencias, began his interest in movie making at the age of eight. His particular interest was special effects and make-up, an area in which he worked for almost a decade before making the low-budget 1993 vampire horror film “Cronos,” which subsequently became a cult classic.
Del Toro’s long absence from the directorial chair has obviously been a source of frustration for him.
In May 2010, production delays forced him to quit the planned film version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” He had been hired to direct both parts of the (then) two-part prequel to “Lord of the Rings.”
It was a hard decision for Del Toro, who had been involved in the project for two years. However, he does get a writing credit on “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first part of the (now) three-part adaptation, which was released over the holiday.
One reason he left The Hobbit was the possibility of Universal agreeing to back his screenplay of H. P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” – a longtime pet project of the Guadalajara filmmaker.
Although Hollywood heavyweight James Cameron was on board as a producer, Universal recently put the film on hold without a foreseeable production date.
“It’s very difficult for the studios to take the step of doing a period-set, R-rated, tentpole movie with a tough ending and no love story,” del Toro said.
Meanwhile, projects in del Toro’s locker include a new stop-motion 3D puppet-led version of the classic fairy tale Pinocchio, backed by the Jim Henson Company.
Del Toro will both direct and executive produce the famous fairy tale about a wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy.
According to one interview del Toro gave at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the film will be gothic, dark and “bleed out into the audience at the edges.”
Another commitment on del Toro’s busy radar is to direct “Crimson Peak,” a horror movie that he calls “a modern take on the classic ghost story.” Shooting should start in early 2014.