Guillermo del Toro Reveals “I’ve Written 42 Screenplays” But Has Only “Made 13 Movies”

Hollywood is littered with unmade screenplays, but “Frankenstein” director Guillermo del Toro is putting on a number on his. During a one-on-one exchange with Bradley Cooper (“Is This Thing On?”) for Variety‘s Directors On Directors, del Toro revealed that he penned 42 screenplays (without naming them all), but because of how tough the industry is, the filmmaker has only been able to turn 13 of them into features.

“People say, ‘Why did you choose this movie?’ I say, ‘Listen, I’ve written 42 screenplays; I’ve made 13 movies.’ It’s not like I said, ‘Oh, no, I’ll do that one now.’ It’s which project can I get produced,” del Toro said, alluding that the movies he makes are mostly based on producers/studios being willing to pay for them. This would mean that 29 screenplays penned by del Toro are just sitting around collecting dust.

READ MORE: 16 Films To See In January: ’28 Years Later 2,’ ‘The RIP,’ ‘Send Help’ & More

Some of those never-made projects include an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s “At The Mountains of Madness” (was nearly made at Universal Pictures with Tom Cruise in a lead role, but fell apart due to budget and R-rating), another big Universal project was an attempt reboot “Van Helsing” with Cruise attached to produce/star (Cruise would end up leading their “Mummy” reboot instead), Universal also wanted him for “Slaughterhouse-Five” (Charlie Kaufman had been working on a script) and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” co-wrote an early version of the “Halo” movie working with producer Peter Jackson (before Neill Blomkamp boarded), his widely shared script for the DC Comics film “Justice League Dark,” a “Deadman” movie based on the DC horror character, Disney once tasked him to write/direct a reboot of “The Haunted Mansion,” a new iteration of “The Wind in the Willows” for Disney, was enlisted by James Cameron/20th Century Fox to helm a remake of the classic sci-fi adventure film “The Fantastic Voyage,” tried to develop a gangster film with David S. Goyer (the two previously worked in “Blade 2“) focused on “Star Wars” villain Jabba The Hutt, developing a film based on Ray Bradbury‘s “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” and we have to imagine there had to be some sort of story treatment/draft for “Hellboy 3” (the comic’s creator Mike Mignola crushed those dreams and pushed for a hard reboot starring David Harbour instead).

There are certainly many more than that, since we’re talking about del Toro making his big feature debut with “Cronos” in 1992, so decades-worth of screenwriting and various project development. Putting together a gargantuan amount of material that sadly won’t ever see the light of day, something many veteran screenwriters experience if they work long enough in Hollywood.

Support independent movie journalism to keep it alive. Sign up for The Playlist Newsletter. All the content you want and, oh, right, it’s free.

Then again, a few projects like “The Hobbit” movies were co-written by del Toro, but he had to focus on “Pacific Rim” instead and wasn’t able to direct himself. Even with “Frankenstein,” he tried to get the movie made ages ago at Universal, only for him to end up doing it at Netflix instead.

You can watch that full exchange between del Toro and Cooper below.