Guillermo del Toro keeps packing his schedule for his year long sabbatical away from directing. The filmmaker has already penciled in interviews with Michael Mann and George Miller, though he’s not quite sure what he’ll do with the results just yet. Now, he’s adding two more projects to his slate.
Variety reports that del Toro has signed up co-write and direct a remake of the 1947 film noir, “Nightmare Alley.” The classic film stars Tyrone Power as a swindling carnival barker who eventually gets outmatched by a woman with an equally strong scheming streak. Here’s the synopsis:
Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) helps Zeena (Joan Blondell) with her cheap mentalist act because her alcoholic husband Pete (Ian Keith) is too sodden to perform before the public. He gets Zeena to share Pete’s valuable code-based trick, and beautiful carny performer Molly (Coleen Gray) learns it as well. Strongman Bruno (Mike Mazurki) isn’t happy about that, but after Pete suffers an unfortunate accident, everything changes. Molly and Stanton marry and leave the carnival for Chicago and a successful nightclub routine. Stanton combines Zeena’s code with his personal intuition to build a substantial reputation as a mentalist, and is aided by the mysteriously suave consulting psychiatrist Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker) in spreading his influence among the North Shore elite. He sets himself up as a spiritual conduit to the afterlife, as a way of fleecing wealthy people who have lost loved ones. Suddenly offered vast fortunes by gullible millionaires, Stanton feels he can do no wrong and coerces Molly into aiding him in the cruelest swindle of all.
del Toro will write the screenplay with Kim Morgan, but as you might guess, it’s open question about whether or not it will be his next movie. The number of projects del Toro has intended to make and see left on the sidelines is staggering. But whether or not “Nightmare Alley” comes to fruition, it gives you a good reason to catch up with the original:
Meanwhile, del Toro will end his producing powers to Scott Cooper‘s “Antlers.” The horror movie is penned by Henry Chaisson and Nick Antosca, and based on the short story by “The Quiet Boy” by the latter, about a young teacher who takes a student in her care, discovering that the child’s brother and father have a dark supernatural secret. It’ll certainly be a shift in gears from Cooper away from the intense dramas like “Out Of The Furnace” and “Hostiles.”
Both projects are currently set up at Fox Searchlight, who are handling del Toro’s latest dazzler, “The Shape Of Water.”