Guillermo Del Toro Wants To Only Make Animated Movies In The Future
Director Guillermo del Toro is an ambitious filmmaker, almost to a fault. For every film he makes, there seems to be two that he had to pass on, or simply hasn't gathered the money to complete. In the book "Guillermo del Toro Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions," the filmmaker lays out a litany of movies he has wanted to make, including a "Hamlet"-like story set in a butcher shop, a steampunk version of "The Count of Monte Cristo," adaptations of novels by Mark Frost and George R.R. Martin, live-action remakes of his favorite anime films, a "Tarzan," a "Halo" movie, a "Silent Hill" movie, a new animated film of "The Wind in the Willows," a few superhero movies with the Hulk and the Justice League, and perhaps most famously, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness."
Del Toro's last produced film was the 2022 stop-motion adaptation of Carlo Collodi's "Pinocchio," the filmmaker's first animated feature, which he co-directed with Mark Gustafson. The director must have become fond of the medium, as he, in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, admitted that animation may be his only path forward in the near future. Live-action movies are all well and good, and he has won several Academy Awards with live actors (his 2017 film "The Shape of Water" won Best Picture), but apart from a few of the above-mentioned projects, del Toro might want to stick with animation in general. "There are a couple more live-action movies I want to do but not many," he said. "After that, I only want to do animation. That's the plan."
This seems like a natural decision for a filmmaker with a striking and unique style and a tendency to create whole, fantastical worlds. Why bother with the limits of the real world when animation can do so much more?
Trojan Horsing around
At the Annecy International Animation Festival in France, del Toro spoke about how impressed he was with the modern state of animation. He loves the visual creativity of a film like "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" and of the upcoming "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem." He also noted that "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" was making a great deal of financial traction; at last count, the Illumination/Nintendo collaboration has netted over $1.3 billion worldwide. The three films in question required a handicap from well-worn I.P. Perhaps, del Toro is implying, a well-moneyed, massive success can now be made that is wholly original. He said:
"The three hits of 'Spider-Verse,' 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' and 'Mario' are moving things, allowing a little more latitude, but there are still big fights to be had. [...] Animation to me is the purest form of art, and it's been kidnapped by a bunch of hoodlums. We have to rescue it. [And] I think that we can Trojan-horse a lot of good s*** into the animation world."
The "hoodlums" in question seem to be mainstream animation studios like Disney and DreamWorks, whose animated output is typically safe, kid-friendly, and easy-to-consume. Indeed, de Toro feels that modern animated fare has become too preoccupied with a certain kind of "sassy" character that is now widespread throughout the mainstream of the medium. He says that modern animated characters are too often "codified into a sort of teenage rom-com, almost emoji-style behavior." He continued:
"[If] I see a character raising his f***ing eyebrow, or crossing his arms, having a sassy pose — oh, I hate that s***. [Why] does everything act as if they're in a sitcom? I think it's emotional pornography. All the families are happy and sassy and quick, everyone has a one-liner."
'Everyone is f***ed up'
This type of character, de Toro feels, is not true to life, and is neglected in animation. He wants mundane, human character in cartoons. He continued:
"[M]y dad was boring. I was boring. Everybody in my family was boring. We had no one-liners. We're all f***ed up. That's what I want to see animated. I would love to see real life in animation. I actually think it's urgent. I think it's urgent to see real life in animation."
If del Toro can explore with his fantasy worlds, and also capture the mundaneness of real life, then why not make animated films exclusively? Del Toro doesn't specify if he wants to stay in stop-motion like with "Pinocchio," stray into CGI, or make hand-drawn cel animation, but he doesn't come across as someone who would be that discriminating. Whatever the animation medium, he seems like the kind of artist who would merely be happy to make it work.
The animated projects del Toro has expressed interest in include "Alma," a feature based on a 2009 short by Rodrigo Blaas, as well as a supernatural film called "Born" that was once going to star Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, with the Chiodo Bros. ("Killer Klowns from Outer Space") providing the animation. The above-mentioned "Wind in the Willows" film fell apart nearly 20 years ago, but may be the sort of film a newly-inspired del Toro would want to resurrect.
Whatever he chooses, it will no doubt be at least interesting.