Public Enemies - What Did You Think?
Guillermo Del Toro Confirms Hugo Weaving For The Hobbit… And Much More
Posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
One of BBC radio presenter Simon Mayo’s guests this week was Guillermo del Toro, and luckily for Guillermo, he came by on a Tuesday when Mayo’s oft-addled movie-reviewing sidekick Mark Kermode would be out of the way. While they were there to primarily discuss Del Toro’s vampire novel The Strain, Mayo did have a poke and probe into many of Guillermo’s upcoming movies, not least of all The Hobbit. After the break, details on his various cast confirmations, including Hugo Weaving as Elrond, and a good sackful of other del Toro updates, including details on why Hellboy 3 will very possibly not happen, the casting and make-up tests for Frankenstein, a potential TV version of The Strain and more.
Hobbit Round Up - How Will the Two Films Be Divided, Will They Bridge to Lord of the Rings, and Who is Going to Play Bilbo?
Posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
In order to publicize The Strain, his new vampire novel written by with Chuck Hogan, Guillermo del Toro has been doing an awful lot of interviews. The best, perhaps, have been with MTV, at least in terms of the off-topic news they’ve managed to squeeze out of the fella. Not only have they had him all but spell out where the split between two films is going to come in his telling of The Hobbit, they’ve even teased out a confession that, at last, Del Toro is down to a single choice in the casting of Bilbo Baggins.
Guillermo del Toro Talks Vampire Novels, Slaughterhouse-Five, and the Future of Storytelling
Posted on Sunday, May 24th, 2009 by Devindra Hardawar
Guillermo del Toro is a busy man. Not only is he facing what must be insane amounts of pressure to make The Hobbit duo of films live up to Peter Jackson’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, he’s also stepping up to adapt Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House Five, starting a series of vampire novels (The Strain, co-written with author Chuck Hogan), and, oh yes—at some point, he wants to help spearhead the convergence of multiple entertainment mediums into an interactive, hybrid storytelling model.
Wired recently spoke to del Toro, and while he was mum on all things Hobbit-related, the Q&A reveals the mind of a man who seems to thrive on pressure and juggling multiple projects at once—all the while remaining conscious of the fact that the entertainment industry is going to look mighty different in 10 years.
Orphanage Writer and Director to Reteam For Visually “Unique” Second Film
Posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
Variety have reported on the reteaming of Juan Antonio Bayona and Sergio Sanchez, the director and screenwriter of The Orphanage. They don’t have many concrete details on this new collaboration at this stage but still succeed in making the film seem incredibly exciting. There’s my bias showing.
One of the producers is quoted as saying the film will be a “powerful story, based on true facts, which poses large technical challenges”. Without knowing which true facts that little hint is more of a red herring, but the prospect of the film presenting “large technical challenges” whets my appetite.
Guillermo del Toro is in talks to produce and mentor commercial director Andres Muschietti’s horror film Mama for Universal, according to RiskyBiz. Andy is writing the English-language screenplay with his sister and producer Barbra. The movie will be based on their acclaimed Spanish-language short film Mama, which traveled the European festival circuit last year. The short film told the story of Victoria and Lily, two girls who are go on the run from a ghostly woman in a Gothic home.
JoBlo has gotten their hands on the original short film, which I’ve embedded after the jump. The majority of the 3-minute film appears to take place in one single camera take (although, I’m sure that it was seamlessly stitched together like some of the segments of Children of Men). I highly recommend you check it out.
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The Hobbit Plans Change - Del Toro and Jackson Spill New Details
Posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
The upcoming 20th birthday of Empire Magazine has been guest edited by none other than Steven Spielberg. By the power of his magical directing beard, he appears to have secured some rather nifty exclusives for the mag, and now they’re starting to flood out.
Quite impressively, they’ve got the scoop on Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro’s revised plans for The Hobbit. Previously we’d been told that they were going to make two films, the first an adaptation the novel and the second to bridge the gap between that book and The Fellowship of the Ring. Now, however, it seems that The Hobbit itself is going to take up two full length pictures all by itself.
Update: As Brendon suspected, this was an April Fools gag. He seemed to be the only suspicious voice out there, and it turns out he was right to be doubtful.
Not only have Criterion announced their edition of Guillermo Del Toro’s debut feature Cronos, but Dimension have scheduled a release for the Director’s Cut of Mimic too, to take place on July 8th. Cronos is currently out of print in R1 but the theatrical cut of Mimic can be picked up very easily everywhere.
The Cronos news broke on the Criterion e-mail news letter with the publication of their latest “Wacky Animal” cartoon, which you can see at the head of this post. Twitch seemed to be the first to run the press image of the Mimic disc which I’ve reproduced below the break with a (short) list of all known special features.
Woody Allen and Miyazaki Not Included on EW’s 25 Greatest Active Film Directors List
Posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
Entertainment Weekly just published their list of the 25 Greatest Active Film Directors. It’s one of those really annoying slideshow stories, so we’ve done the legwork and printed the entire shortlist after the jump.
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Guillermo Del Toro Would Cede Director’s Chair For BPRD Spin-Off
Posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
Somewhere in New Zealand, some cork boards are covered in index cards spelling out beat-by-beat the adventures of one Bilbo Baggins and his little magic buddies. Okay, maybe not literally, but Guillermo del Toro did recently spill to MTV that “the cards” were ready for his The Hobbit film. Since then, work has been underway on fleshing out this bare skeleton, conceiving visuals and chewing over casting options.
Early days on his Middle Earth mission, then. Exciting stuff, sure, but for somebody who loved Hellboy 2 as much as I did (and, boy, did I - I went to two press previews and paid for two more tickets too, got the disc in December and loved it all up to a nice shine) there’s got to be some tinge of regret over how long it will be until we see Hellboy 3.
What’s Really Going On With Clive Barker, Guillermo Del Toro and Daniel Simpson’s Born?
Posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
The proposed horror film Born has been described as a fantasy film and as a psychological thriller. The plot reportedly revolves around a married couple, the husband of which is a stop-motion animator, settling down in a quaint English town and then getting terrorised by his claymation creations.
When I first heard about the film it was in a Variety piece that named an amazing array of talent attached as writers, producers and stars. Apparently, Daniel Simpson was attached to direct from a screenplay he had written with Paul Kaye, Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly were set to star, the Chiodo brothers were to supply stop-motion effects, and Guillermo Del Toro and Cliver Barker were among the producers. Surely the poster for that film alone could secure a multi-million dollar budget? Well… I’ve put the poster down at the bottom of the post and you can judge how much it really would cost (in Chewitts and milk bottle tops if you think dollars inappropriate) for yourself.
Guillermo del Toro Brings Stop-Motion “Pinocchio” to Life
Posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 by Devindra Hardawar
Earlier this week, Blood Disgusting scored the exclusive news that Guillermo del Toro is working on a stop-motion version of Pinnochio together with artist Gris Grimly. Variety elaborated on the news, revealing that the film will be co-directed by Grimly and Adam Parrish King, with del Toro producing and co-writing the screenplay.
In typical del Toro fashion, this is not your average child-friendly Pinocchio tale. He tells Bloody Disgusting:
We are trying to get a full stop-motion version of Gris Grimly’s PINOCCHIO off the ground, with the Jim Henson Company. The idea came from Gris, and everybody loves his book about it. The original story is far more perverse and spooky and semi-necrophilia vibe to it in certain aspects. Gris certainly has that vein in him, he wants to do this with that original spookiness in it, we are trying to get it going.
The Jim Henson Company is the behind it and we are currently working on the screenplay! Its not coming to a screen near you any time soon, even if it were to begin today it would be about three years in the making, but we are working to make it happen. A full-scale puppet universe takes time.
Fans of Hellboy 2 will remember that the opening sequence featured a stop-motion puppet sequence, so this medium is certainly not new to del Toro. It was a bit jarring to see such a drastic change of style in a Hellboy film, but it served the story well and suited del Toro’s fantastical style. He also hints at a feature-length puppet film of his own coming along, but unfortunately couldn’t say much on the topic.
I’m a fan of stop-motion animation in general, so it’s great to see del Toro show some love to an arguably dying genre. This also makes me wonder if he’ll ever make the jump to traditional animation as well. A Guillermo del Toro written/directed project produced by an anime company could be pretty fantastic in my opinion.
Discuss: What do you think about Guillermo del Toro’s jump into stop-motion puppetry? Are there any other fairy tale or folklore properties you’d like to see handled in the same way?
“Orphanage” Director Juan Antonio Bayona To Direct “Hater”
Posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 by David Chen
There are some young individuals in this world whose talent seems so boundless and who show so much potential at the beginning of their careers that the mind staggers at the endless possibilities of the future. Juan Antonio Bayona is one of those people. I still remember the first time I watched Bayona’s The Orphanage (his feature-film directorial debut), a movie whose command of mood and horror is so deft that I felt physically ill with anticipation during certain segments (e.g. the “Red light - green light” scene in the darkness).
Thus, I was extremely excited to learn that Bayona will be teaming up again with producer Guillermo Del Toro to direct Hater for Universal, with a script by Shield veteran Glen Mazarra based off a book by David Moody. The book describes a society rocked by citizens who are suddenly susceptible to random bouts of violent, homicidal rage. Essentially, it sounds a lot like The Happening, only with people hurting each other instead of themselves. Let’s hope it can avoid that movie’s hokiness and the ridiculous of its Shyamalan-style twist ending [Update: Commenters also rightfully point out that the book's plot is similar to that of The Signal]. I, for one, can’t wait for Bayona to get back into the game.
Source: Variety
[Fun Fact: You can purchase a used copy of the paperback version of Hater used on Amazon for $527.04. Guess that edition is a tad rare?]
