Ahh, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster. The 1931 film is one of the all-time greats. Guillermo del Toro loves it so much he wants to take a crack at remaking it.
I just loved the headline on this article in Variety today: “Guillermo del Toro Booked Thru 2017.” Really? Guillermo’s got the next nine years or so filled in on his calendar? I’m not sure I know what I’m doing tomorrow.
Part of this well-planned busyness comes from del Toro’s long-term deal and good relationship with Universal studios. He signed a four picture first look deal with the studio in 2007, which is now on hold while he deals with Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. del Toro describes the situation:
“No one expected ‘The Hobbit’ to come about; it was the most marvelous monkey wrench tossed into my life. I consider (the new deals) the renewal of my marital vows with Universal.”
Well, that’s lovely. Here’s what our exuberant directing friend has lined up:
- Five years are being given over to make the two film version of The Hobbit. del Toro is currently working on the script with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens.
- An adaptation of the upcoming Dan Simmons novel Drood, most likely to be the first of the four pictures at Universal. The novel proposes the idea that Charles Dickens’ survival from a catastrophic train crash changed him drastically, “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.” Universal production president Donna Langley said:
“It’s the fantasy and gothic horror world Guillermo finds comfortable. It feels like a great fit for where (we expect) Guillermo will have evolved as a filmmaker five years from now.” - A remake of the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein. del Toro is a big fan. He says:
“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.”
Who is having more fun than Guillermo del Toro? No one, I tell you. - Then there will be a new version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Reportedly del Toro plans to stick more closely to Robert Louis Stevenson’s original prose (and good for him–Stevenson is an unjustly ignored author) and emphasize the “addictive high” experienced by Jekyll when in Hyde mode.
- And the fourth Universal film in the deal will be a new adaptation of Slaughterhouse Five, the Kurt Vonnegut classic about a time-traveling World War II prisoner in a German POW camp. del Toro’s take?
“There are ways that Vonnegut plays with and juxtaposes time that was perhaps too edgy to be tackled on film at that time.”
(He means the 1972 film version.) - Meanwhile, del Toro is awaiting a decision on Hellboy III. The second film got kind of lost in the blockbuster shuffle this summer, but was solid overseas. Here’s the director’s thoughts on it all:
“I think they’ll decide when the last euro hits the piggybank. 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.”
(Ron Perlman must never stop laughing when he sits back and thinks about all those casting directors who wouldn’t give him the time of day when he was in his twenties.)
Langley, the Universal exec, said a Hellboy TV series or online segments might also be in the future, regardless of whether a film happens or not. - Beyond their current deal, Universal and del Toro may also get together on an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, something the director’s long wanted to do. Metal fans, rejoice.
- del Toro also will be producing a few films at his own production company, including Hater, an adaptation of the David Moody novel, and Crimson Peak, a “gothic romance” script written by del Toro and Matthew Robbins.
Whew! Now of course, who knows if all this will happen? The longer lead time there is on any given project, the more time there is for something to go wrong. But there’s some intriguing ideas on that list that would be fun to see.
