N is for “Nutshell Studies”
Del Toro’s other HBO project, one that sadly appears to have died on the vine, was “Nutshell Studies,” first announced in 2012. Based on Corinne May Botz’s book “The Nutshell Studies Of Unexplained Death,” with “Southland” writer Sara Gran adapting, it was based on the true story of Frances Glessner Lee, a Harvard academic and New Hampshire police captain who used dioramas to reconstruct murders. The project was described as a ‘Hitchcockian’ thriller about a housewife in the 1950s who becomes obsessed with solving murders, and it sounded pretty intriguing, but there’s been no news since the original announcement.
O is for “The Orphanage” (remake)
Probably the best of the movies that del Toro has produced so far was J.A. Bayona’s 2007 ghost story “The Orphanage,” a devastatingly sad, deeply spooky picture that launched its helmer to fame. As is usual for a foreign-language horror, remake rights were snapped up quickly, in this case by New Line, with del Toro again producing, and Larry Fessenden (“Habit,” “Wendigo”) initially attached to direct. Mark Pellington (“The Mothman Prophecies”) eventually replaced him, and Amy Adams was rumored to star, but the project appears to have stalled for now.
P is for “Pan” and “Pinocchio”
Del Toro’s interest in fables, fairy tales and folklore is no secret, as two very different projects indicate. Back in the mid-’00s, he was attached to direct “Pan” (thankfully not the Joe Wright monstrosity), a dark spin on J.M. Barrie’s classic from writer Benjamin Magid which recasts Captain Hook as a police detective chasing a childlike kidnapper. It never happened at New Line, but nearly got going again a few years back with Aaron Eckhart and Sean Bean starring.
More real was “Pinocchio,” a version of the classic story of the wooden boy based on Gris Grimly’s book, that would have marked Del Toro’s stop-motion animation debut. He was initially developing it as a producer, but eventually decided to helm as well, along with Grimly and “Fantastic Mr. Fox”’s Mark Gustafson sharing the labor. It sounded like a dark, intriguing take, and had Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Waits, Christopher Walken and, on musical duty, Nick Cave involved, but the failure of Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie” seemed to get the financing pulled on the project.
Q is for Quidditch
Look, it’s the letter Q, we had to take a stretch here. Anyway, Quidditch is a sport played in the “Harry Potter” franchise, something that del Toro turned down at one point. The one that the director seem to be closest on was the third film, “Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban,” which he was offered but ultimately declined, telling Collider in 2012, “I was reacting more to the two movies that came first and I felt the tone was much lighter than the books. I thought the books had almost a Dickensian pathos and I was very afraid of going into an experience where the tonal shift was going to be so big at that scale. I was timid.” His friend Alfonso Cuarón took the job, and turned out probably the best film in the series. Del Toro later said that he would be keen on helming the “darker” ‘Deathly Hallows’ finale, but by then David Yates was firmly settled in, and del Toro was at the time busy on “The Hobbit” anyway.
R is for (Pacific) Rim 2
In terms of sheer gross, “Pacific Rim” was undoubtedly the biggest hit of del Toro’s career to date, and while the film was expensive enough that a sequel wasn’t an obvious greenlight, full development did eventually get underway — he reteamed with Travis Beacham to start writing a sequel a few months after the film opened. A 2017 release date was set, but amidst fears over “Warcraft” and other big-budget properties, Universal ended up “indefinitely halting” the movie. Most of us assumed that the film was gone, but surprisingly, it was resurrected this year, as “Pacific Rim: Maelstrom,” with “Daredevil” and “Spartacus” showrunner Steven S. DeKnight helming, and John Boyega starring. Half a dozen writers appear to have worked on it since del Toro fell off, so there’s no telling how close it’ll be to the original vision: We’ll find out in 2018.
S is for “Sandkings,” “Star Wars,” “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark,” “Silva” and “The Secret Garden”
Lots of S letters here, so we’ll try to be brief. First, before he made his English-language debut with “Mimic,” del Toro wanted to adapt a novella by “Game Of Thrones” creator George R. R. Martin called “Sandkings,” about a man collecting exotic insect-like pets and making them fight with each other, but it ended up being turned into an episode of the 1995 reboot of “The Outer Limits” by someone else before he could get to it. Another ambitious adaptation would be a take on Kurt Vonnegut’s near-unfilmable “Slaughterhouse-Five,” which has been set up at Universal for the best part of a decade. He says he’s discussed with Charlie Kaufman a way of adapting it, but is in a catch-22: “the studio will make it when it’s my next movie,” he said in 2013, “but how can I commit to it being my next movie until there’s a screenplay? Charlie Kaufman is a very expensive writer!” There was also “Sleepless Knights,” based on a script by Grant Morrison, that was a family oriented movie that kicks off when the world gets permanently stuck on Halloween, and a new Ghostbusters-style team is formed to deal with all the supernatural creatures and ghouls that are running around.
Like many A-list helmers, del Toro was linked to the film that became “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and eventually confirmed to us in 2013 that he was availability-checked with a phone call, but was too busy and ultimately passed. He did have a conversation with Lucasfilm’s John Knoll where he pitched what he called “a Jabba The Hut Scarface — his ascension in the crime family,” but stressed that the project isn’t in development in any way.
In terms of smaller movies, the film that he was said to be following “Crimson Peak” at one point instead of “The Shape Of Water” could have been “Silva,” a black-and-white, low-budget movie about a Mexican luchador wrestler who discovers that all politicians are vampires. The film was originally in development post-“Cronos” but may have resurfaced recently, though it’s unclear if it’s still on the cards now. Also recently, del Toro’s been developing a new version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s classic “The Secret Garden” with “Beasts Of The Southern Wild” writer Lucy Alibar, and signed onto an adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’ beloved short stories “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark” from writer John August at the start of this year.
T is for “Trollhunters,” “3993” and “Tarzan”
At the start of the decade, after he exited “The Hobbit,” del Toro took a regular gig at Dreamworks Animation, serving as a consultant on films including “Puss In Boots,” “Rise Of The Guardians” and “Kung Fu Panda 3.” As part of the deal, it was also announced that he would co-direct (with “Alma” director Rodrigo Blaas) an animated movie for the company called “Trollhunters,” about a teenager caught in the war between good and evil trolls. The project stalled as a movie, but was turned into a book last year, and has now resurfaced as an animated series on Netflix, with Blaas serving as showrunner. The project serves as one of the last projects of the late Anton Yelchin, who voices the lead, and will debut on the streaming service in December.
Another project that could have been a return to smaller fare post-“Pan’s Labyrinth” was something called “3993,” from “The Orphanage” writer Sergio Sánchez, which could have also completed the Spanish Civil War trilogy of “The Devil’s Backbone” and ‘Pan’s.’ Sánchez said at the time, “It’s also a fantasy film with the Spanish Civil War in the background. It’s the two time periods where the movie takes place. It starts in 1993 and then there’s something that happened in ’39 that’s relevant to the story. Right now they’re re-opening many graves from the Civil War, many people who disappeared and now enough time has past so they’re re-opening the graves and there’s a lot of people who can finally find their ancestors and stuff. The story deals with that.” It sounds intriguing, but it’s barely been mentioned since, and “Saturn And The End Of Days” (see above) may have superseded it in the trilogy.
Finally, seemingly every writer and director in town was involved in the development of Warner Bros’ “Tarzan” movie, which finally arrived on screens this summer, and del Toro was among their number: He was attached to the project in the mid-’00s, “I’d love to create a new version that is still a family movie, but as edgy as I can make it,” the director said. But he soon fell away, with Stephen Sommers the first of many directors attached after him.
