Guillermo del Toro Talks about the Future of Movies and Gaming
Wired Magazine has a fantastic little article focusing on director Guillermo del Toro and the future of film. Guillermo del Toro is one of the most imaginative directors in Hollywood right now. He has come a long way since 'The Devils Backbone' and 'Blade II'. Now it seems he has his hand in so many different projects it makes me wonder if the guy ever sleeps. He has most likely discovered a way where he doesn't have to anymore. Wired went ahead and had a great conversation with the guy.
It is a well known fact that Del Toro love his monsters and has a great artist style, he also throws in some seriously deep drama in his movies like 'Pan's Labyrinth'. He is asked if he still gets the push back from the industry which believes that sci-fi/fantasy filmmaking don't mix with serious filmmaking.
People think because you love genre you don't know anything else. It's condescending. If the emotion is provoked and the goals are achieved, what does it matter? Is Thomas Pynchon a more worthy read than Stephen King? It depends on the afternoon. And I love Kurt Vonnegut. He threads the profane and irreverent with the profound and soul-searing.
So true. As of right now Del Toro has 11 movies that he is slated to write, direct, or produce within the next decade and it is easy to assume that during this time more and more projects will fill his plate. The Eleven film projects he currently has lined up is as follows:
The Hobbit - Which most of us can't wait for.
Hellboy III - This has always been a fun character to watch.
Drood - Charles Dickens as a Serial Killer.
Pinocchio - Most likely to be done in Stop-Motion Animation.
Slaughterhouse-Five - The tale of World War II and Alien Abduction.
At the Mountains of Madness - An adaption of H.P. Lovecrafts mythic tale with a great title.
Frankenstein - Del Toro has been wanting to do this for the longest time. It's his passion project.
The Witches - Based on the Roald Dahl fantasy, this may also be done in stop-motion animation.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - Based on the 1973 horror film about a demon filled mansion.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Based on the classic novel.
Doctor Strange - Based on the Marvel Comic character. Oh please, please, please let this happen!
When Del Toro is asked what technological innovations that we will see in the content and distribution of these films he says:
In the next 10 years, we're going to see all the forms of entertainment—film, television, video, games, and print—melding into a single-platform "story engine." The Model T of this new platform is the PS3. The moment you connect creative output with a public story engine, a narrative can continue over a period of months or years. It's going to rewrite the rules of fiction.
Wow. That's pretty deep. This is going to be a whole new form of storytelling, to this he replies:
Think about the way oral tradition became written word—how what we know about Achilles was written many, many years after it made its way around the world with different names and different types of heroes. That can happen when you allow content to keep propagating itself through different kinds of platforms and engines—when you permit it to be retold with a promiscuous form of mythology. You see it when people create their own avatars in games and transfigure their game worlds.
What he is talking about here could change the face of Hollywood and entertainment. I gotta say when I first started reading this article this isn't the stuff I expected to hear, but it's pretty amazing stuff! If they can actually pull this off it would be incredible! He goes on to explain what the concept is and how they plan on executing it.
Samuel Arkoff once told me there are only 10 great stories. That's where the engine and promiscuity come in. Hollywood thinks art is like Latin in the Middle Ages-only a few should know it, only a few should speak it. I don't think so.
He then explains how the same 10 stories will be told differently.
We are used to thinking of stories in a linear way—act one, act two, act three. We're still on the Aristotelian model. What the digital approach allows you to do is take a tangential and nonlinear model and use it to expand the world. For example: If you're following Leo Bloom from Ulysses on a certain day and he crosses a street, you can abandon him and follow someone else.
He goes on to talk about the merger of video games and movies, and how he has found that video game studios are just as conservative as the movie studios which I find surprising. But, one day in the next 10 years he say's there will be an earthshaking 'Citizen Kane' of video games.
The article is an extremely good read and I strongly suggest you head on over to Wired to read the rest of it and get more of the details. I love everything that Del Toro is talking about and I hope that he will pull it off. It obviously won't happen until the Hobbit is done.
What do you think about all this stuff? Are you game?
Oh! And the picture at the top is of the inside of Del Toro's home. Pretty cool huh?
Source: Wired