Guillermo del Toro heads back into the dark
With Guillermo del Toro’s announcement that he’s no longer directing the Hobbit films, the writer, director, and producer is freed up to follow more of his own properties. Many fans are hoping these will include Hellboy 3, which del Toro says he has definite plans for, but isn’t on his list of upcoming projects. Instead, the always-interesting filmmaker is involved with a variety of films across several genres. The most recent of these, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, premiered at San Diego Comic-Con last month.Del Toro’s influences have always included classic horror and weird fiction like H.P. Lovecraft’s. His previous films like Hellboy and Pan’s Labryinth pop with eye-catching creatures and old-fashioned scares. With Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, he takes his first shot at actually updating such a sourcein this case, a 1973 made-for-television film of the same name. This new film is written by del Toro and Matthew Robbins, and serves as the directing debut of Troy Nixey. Katie Holmes plays a young girl who moves in with her father and discovers a race of creatures living in the house with her.That film will release in 2011. Del Toro is producing a couple of Spanish-language films which will release before then, the drama Biutiful and the horror film Julia’s Eyes. However, the filmmaker’s next directed effort isn’t scheduled until 2012 or later: an adaptation of idol H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “At the Mountains of Madness.” A del Toro-penned remake of Disney’s The Haunted Mansion is also due in 2012.As if that weren’t enough, del Toro also branched out last year by writing a novel, The Strain, alongside author Chuck Hogan. A sequel, The Fall, is planned to be released in September.