A few weeks ago Guillermo Del Toro shocked many when he dropped out of directing The Hobbit, saying that despite having moved him and his family to New Zealand, with so much uncertainty over the shoot, he couldn’t commit to the three years it would take until he’d completed the Tolkien adaptations.
So now that he’s not going to Middle Earth what is he going to do? Well, it sounds like because he’s been so busy with the Hobbit, any new movie is still a way off, but he’s been speaking to Bloody Disgusting, Collider and Sci-Fi Wire at the Saturn Awards, updating them on the movies he’s interested in.
For quite a while, one dream project has been the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation At The Mountains Of Madness, although Del Toro didn’t sound desperately hopeful, saying “I would love to be doing Mountains Of Madness, but still, even now, its very difficult for the studios to take the step of an R-rated, tentpole movie, with a tough ending, no love story.”
The other two major possibilities are Frankenstein and Hellboy III, with the director saying, “Im presenting the storylines [for Frankenstein] to Universal, but the screenplays not ready. Hellboy III is the same, so if we went into Hellboy, it would need to be the next movie after this one or whatever, but I dont know yet.”
Of those three, Frankenstein would seem to be the biggest possibility, as while the screenplay isn’t ready, they’ve already started design work on the Mary Shelley adaptation. De Toro adds, I want to be, if possible, shooting in May next year So I need something that is ready to go into preproduction immediately. If that’s true, Frankenstein would seem most likely.
We’ve been promised more updates and possible confirmation of what film he’ll make at next month’s Comic Con, so expect to hear more then.