During a festival from The New Yorker, Guillermo del Toro spoke about The Hobbit and also about Frankenstein, which is one of endless projects he has waiting for him on the other side.
Many questions were asked, but because it’s so far out, del Toro had to remain silent even though he’s very anxious to share.
Guillermo is, however, able to discuss how he sees things and what inspires him. With this he explained how he draws inspiration from real life, like for The Hobbit, he looks at things like World War I and draws from that because he believes The Hobbit was born of that generation. He also was also able to discuss some thoughts on Smaug, which is a character many are excited about.
All my life I’ve been fascinated by dragons. I was born under the Chinese sign of The Dragon. All my life I’m collecting dragons. It’s such a powerful symbol, and in the context of ‘The Hobbit’ it is used to cast its shadow through the entire narrative. Essentially, Smaug represents so many things: greed, pride… he’s ‘the Magnificent,’ after all. The way his shadow is cast in the narrative you cannot then show it and have it be one thing, he has to be the embodiment of all those things. He’s one of the few dragons that will have enormous scenes with lines. He has some of the most beautiful dialogues in those scenes! The design, I’m pretty sure that will be the last design we will sign off on, and the first design we have attempted. It is certainly a matter of turning every stone before figuring out what he looks like, because what he looks like will tell you what he is.
In regard to Frankenstein, Guillermo has wanted to make this since he was a boy, so don’t be surprised if it’s first in line after this little adventure to Middle Earth.
I’m not doing ‘Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.’ I’m doing an adventure story that involves the creature. I cannot say much, but it’s not the central creation story, I’m not worried about that. The fact is I’ve been dreaming of doing a ‘Frankenstein’ movie since I was a child. The one thing I can promise is, compared to Kenneth Branagh, I will not appear shirtless in the movie!
So that’s where Guillermo del Toro is at the moment. I’m incredibly excited for anything this man makes, but I’m really interested in seeing the third movie in his Spanish Civil War trilogy (The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth) — which I’m not even sure he’s still going to make anymore.
[Source: CS]
Forget Frankenstein. When is Del Toro going to grow some cajones and dive into some real horror and finally get around to the Mountains of Madness adaptation that he’s been yapping about for the past several years. I’m sort of tired of hearing that its “the next one” after every movie he does and he just keeps pushing it back. Let’s stop with the Universal Monsters reimaginings and go for something with a little more bang.