10 Guillermo Del Toro Movies That Are Never Going To Happen

5. Drood

What is it? An adaptation of Dan Simmons doorstop Dickens biography-cum-ghost detective story, Drood was another project that Del Toro set up at Universal back in 2009 as something that he would likely move on to after finishing production on The Hobbit. Framed as the memoirs of Woman In White writer, habitual opium user, and unreliable narrator Wilkie Collins, the story blends real events from the last five years of Dickens' life, beginning with the train crash that almost killed him, with a search for a soul sucking phantom. It seems a perfect project for Del Toro's period Gothic sensibilities and Dickens is a perennially popular subject. After all, in the years since this project was announced, the same train crash has featured centrally in Ralph Fiennes' The Invisible Woman, there's been a BBC adaptation of The Mystery Of Edwin Drood (the final Dickens novel that inspired Simmons), not to mention two Great Expectations and the current TV show Dickensian. Why won't it happen? Arguably, the fact that we've recently had an onslaught of Dickensian movies and TV could well count against Drood. Originally due for release in 2012, the bicentenary of the author's birth, the film now seems a bit like it has missed its time. Meanwhile, the commercial failure of the aforementioned The Invisible Woman suggests that, although there's always an audience for adaptations of Dickens' works, derivative or biographical Dickens stories are not guaranteed winners. The rights for Drood rest with Universal, who did not make big money distributing Hellboy II or Crimson Peak, so may be cautious about honouring their previous deals with Del Toro, while the director himself has been quieter on this project than many of the others on this list.