Guillermo del Toro on PACIFIC RIM Sequel and HAUNTED MANSION
Guillermo del Toro's amazing looking next film, Pacific Rim, doesn't come out until this summer, but Del Toro is already working on developing the sequel. In a recent interview with The Playlist he's asked if he plans to shoot it in 3D, and this was his reply...
Yes. Provided, at that point, that the technology is becoming easier and easier…
Even then they were super respectful. By then we were already getting ILM shots. I was realizing that out of 100 shots, maybe 10% of the shots were risky. They said, "If we go 2D on those shots, we can do it." Then I gave them my list of conditions. They spent twice of what they normally spend on [this process], because they gave me the chance to pay ILM to do every single shot in native 3D. They aren't being converted. So all the big 3D effects shots are being done by ILM from the get go. Normally they give a movie a 14 to 16 week conversion time [for 3D]. I started the conversion back in September. So it's six months for conversion. It's very classy.
Well, it's good to know the 3D on this Pac Rim movie is going to be decent. It seems the films that Del Toro is making are just getting bigger and bigger. He's asking for huge budgets for the films he makes, which is one of the reason At the Mountains of Madness never happened. During the interview he's asked if he'll go back to making smaller films, which in the past have been his best films.
Yeah, but it's not like I have two screenplays under my bed. I successfully reached page 25 for Saturn and the End of Days and on another [script] I have successfully reached page 45. Those things take years to write. Devil's Backbone was like 15 years it took me to make. Pan's Labyrinth it took me two or three years to solve the screenplay. I work on them but they are trickier propositions. As soon as I finish the screenplay to one of them, I'll leave everything I have to go make it.
That's cool to hear! I hope he finishes one of them soon, I'd like to see what they were about. He goes on to give an update on The Haunted Mansion film project saying,
Haunted Mansion is very much alive and in process. Disney is very supportive and we are doing another draft of the screenplay… Yet another draft… And they really want to do it. I know we're going to talk about other possible directors, for me to produce, and having written it, produce it for somebody else.
It's going to be scary. Hopefully it will be fun scary, rather than funny scary. It's going to be fun but the idea is to make it scary like when you go through the ride as the kid – part of you is charmed and part of you wants to get out of there.
I'm relieved that the project isn't dead, that's one I really want to see happen! It has potential to be incredibly fun. Then there's the Beauty and Beast film with Emma Watson that he's developing, he gives a little update on that one as well...
We just got the first draft from Andrew Davies, who wrote some BBC Charles Dickens miniseries, to great effect, including two of my favorites of his – "Little Dorrit" and "Bleak House." I love his work. So we just got it. I'm doing a pass myself and then we'll send it to the studio for reactions.
I suggest you head on over to The Playlist to read the whole interview, because there's a lot of good stuff that the filmmaker talks about. Out of all the projects that Del Toro has been developing over the years which one are you looking forward to seeing most?