Guillermo De Toro is, by his own admission, a workaholic; someone who seems to be perennially juggling several different projects at the same time, if only as a means to avert a natural tendency towards boredom. And, yet, for somebody whose reputation was gained as a director, he has remarkably and through no fault of his own, been unable to do anything with the camera since Hellboy II: The Golden Army opened in 2008. Since sideling up to Hollywood studios- primarily as Executive producer for Dreamworks- Del Toro has seen filthy lucre in abundance, but has been unable to display his gifts with either the pen or camera. So after his two year time on
The Hobbit ended around a year ago and his one year in development proposal for an adaptation for
At the Mountains of Madness was ultimately turned down this month, and now concerns about taste are being raised over his monster movie
Pacific Rim following recent events in Japan, is there any chance of Del Toro just saying 'screw the lot of ya's' and returning to make a third film in the
Hellboy trilogy? Answer below... Although the Mexican auteur
told Joe Uitchi as early as 2008 that a third Hellboy was likely as soon as he had completed- his now usurped- Hobbit project, in a
recent interview with Movieweb, he was uncharacteristically blunt when asked if he was ready to team up with Ron Pearlman again:
MW: Are there any plans at this time for a third "Hellboy" movie? Guillermo del Toro: There are no plans at all.
The curtness of the Mexicans response maybe indicative of a deeper issue, even if what he said is correct. Of course, it may be the case he is simply showing his poker face, but is more likely to be the product of frustration that he has been unable to film anything fresh and original since the beautifully ornate Pans Labyrinth. Since the backers of Pacific Rim have yet to make any statement on the status of the project since the disaster in Japan, Del Toros immediate future remains unclear, although it is highly likely they may think a film in which a sea-monster emerges from the sea to attack the Japanese people a potential public relations disaster.
Indeed a fanboy war of words began last night between
AICN head honcho Harry Knowles and
Bloody Disgusting chief Mr. Disgusting who have both heard differing things from their own insider sources about the status of Pacific Rim. Bloody Disgusting are adamant that the guys at Legendary Pictures are desperate to turn the risky original tentpole into the new Godzilla epic they want to get off the ground, and this is the second time they've asked Del Toro to go in that direction;
Apparently Del Toro has been asked (again) to turn Pacific Rim into the new Godzilla. He refused. Expect this to be a regular occurrence as it sounds like Legendary would much rather get the giant green monster back in theaters than Rim. What's interesting is that Monsters director Gareth Edwards was attached to Godzilla back in January...
But AICN counted with;
This is wrong. I know an awful lot about this project - but can not write openly about what I know, that said - this film will be international in scope. People that claim otherwise are going off of an OCTOBER draft of the screenplay, which has changed quite a bit since then - completely unmotivated by the current disaster in JAPAN. I've talked to a lot of folks that are working on this film and it will be a-fucking-mazing.
Usually, both AICN and Bloody Disgusting are spot on with their Del Toro sources, so who knows who to believe? Though common sense will tell us that Legendary are likely to be nervous about setting such a big disaster movie in Japan. If this turns out to be the case, in spite of his recalcitrance, Hellboy 3 could be the directors best chance at re-establishing a foothold as one of the worlds pre-eminent film makers.
(Matt Holmes contributed the Godzilla portions of this post)