Guillermo del Toro Tagged Articles at Cinematical

A few months ago Cinematical was invited to visit the set of the new film written and produced by Guillermo del Toro – no, not that one. A remake of the 1973 Australian film of the same name, Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark is a fantasy-horror film in the vein of Pan's Labyrinth, which certainly would make the Spanish auteur an obvious choice for its director as well, but del Toro turned the directing reins over to Troy Nixey, a first-time filmmaker who impressed him with a short film he made called Latchkey's Lament.

Last week Latchkey found its way onto Youtube, and having seen it on the set of Dark, we can attest it's just the kind of visual odyssey from which great directors are born. Meanwhile, the original Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark is now available on demand via Warner Archives if you need further incentive to check out the upcoming remake, but we suspect that after you watch both parts of Nixey's first opus you won't need any other reasons to be intrigued – or more likely, afraid of what's to come.

Check out Parts One and Two after the jump:

MGM has been plagued by financial woes for much of their long and illustrious career, but their most recent crisis could end up costing them two of their biggest titles. Nikke Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily is breathlessly reporting that the studio is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy with over $3.5 billion in debt. MGM held a very long conference call with their creditors, pleading with themto waive their interest payments until February 2010, and allow them the cash they need for the rest of the year, particularly to fund its upcoming slate of films. Naturally, some of those are highly anticipated, such as Robocop, The Hobbit, and the latest James Bond installment.

However, MGM's creditors aren't feeling particularly charitable, and may force the studio to file for bankruptcy. If that happens, they could lose James Bond, The Hobbit, and numerous other franchises as MGM would have to sell them to the highest bidder. Right now, they're trying to convince their Scrooges that bankruptcy is the worst possible option, and that Bond and Bilbo are big enough moneymakers to cover their debt. That's where the situation stands now, and it'll certainly be quite the economic spectacle to watch.

I find the news particularly interesting in light of Peter Jackson's remarks on The Hobbit at ComicCon, when he squashed rumors that the film was in the casting stages, and noted that it hadn't even really been green-lit or had its budget approved yet. It was a douse of cold water after a lot of breathless excitement, much of which seemed to come straight from the filmmakers themselves. Could the brakes have been put on because of MGM's financial woes? Possibly.

Continued below the jump

Dick Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, announced a new label in conjunction with Guillermo del Toro, Disney's Double Dare You. It's a line of animated films, books, and merchandise meant to capture the immersive Disney E-ticket experience, according to del Toro. "I remember visiting Disneyland for the first time over 40 years ago, when they used to use alphabetical tickets. The E-tickets were the highly immersive, story-driven experiences, and that's what we hope to bring you."

Del Toro, via a video message from New Zealand where he's working on The Hobbit, said the first film under the label will be an original idea of his called Trollhunters, with an additional feature to be announced soon, "that you will be very familiar with." Del Toro will produce all films under the new label. Our money is on a horror version of That Darn Cat. Finally.

One thing I'm loving about Warner Bros and their DC collection is that they aren't neglecting the boys and girls of their Strange Adventures and Weird Western Tales in favor of flashier and more marketable superheroes. So, all should be suitably intrigued by Variety reporting that Warner Bros is bringing Deadman to the bigscreen. The studio has brought Nikolaj Arcel on to direct, and Guillermo Del Toro will produce alongside Don Murphy. Those who follow the exhaustive properties Del Toro has lined up for himself probably remember that he was eying the director's chair for himself a few years back.

So, who is Deadman? Well, he's that pale fellow to your right, and was once a circus acrobat named Boston Brand. His happy life on the high wire was cut short by an assailant known only as The Hook, but he was given a second life courtesy of Hindu goddess Rama Kushna. She gave his spirit the power to possess any living person he chose in order to find his assailant, and assist in the ongoing battle against evil. With his circus past, he's naturally brushed crossovers with the unfortunate Graysons, and he's met up with lots of dead DC heroes. He's most recently popped up in that Green Lantern arc everyone's talking about, Blackest Night, and is helping fight the good fight. Despite not being that well known, Deadman is an intriguing, eerie hero and very movie worthy.

No start date has been set for Deadman, and I'm ashamed to say that I'm unfamiliar with Arcel's work. But with Warner Bros, DC, and Del Toro backing him, I'm expecting good things. They seem unable to do wrong at the WB.

There's a huge rumor making the rounds today (courtesy of Marketsaw) that Peter Jackson now wants to direct a third bridge film connecting The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, and that he wants all three films (including Guillermo del Toro's two Hobbit movies) to be shot in 3D. Those of you following the progress of these films should remember that way back when The Hobbit was first announced, both Jackson and del Toro were keen on doing three movies total, with two based on The Hobbit and one based on other related material like appendices that Jackson had gotten a hold of.

A bit later on both men squashed the idea of a third film because, according to Jackson -- who spoke to MTV about a potential third film as recently as this month -- Warner Bros. and New Line only have the rights to make two films. However, it felt like Jackson wanted to make a third film if it was at all possible, so perhaps they've found a way to make that happen and we just haven't been told yet? Personally, though, I'm more interested in the 3D angle on all this because, well, I don't think they should be filmed in 3D. Not only would it be a bit rough to sit through a three-hour 3D movie (oh c'mon, you know those suckers are gonna be way long), but I just don't think 3D would add a whole lot to the finished product. Would Middle Earth look cool in a couple shots? Sure. Other than that ... eh?

I'll give you Avatar -- that's a film that belongs in 3D. And I can even see the potential in something gimmicky like Final Destination 3D. But The Hobbit? Really? Does every big upcoming film need to be in 3D now? Is that where we're at?

What do you think about The Hobbit in 3D?

In the same way that higher-profile actors are jumping on the video game ship sans shame, so too are movie writers like Wanted's Chris Morgan. Morgan has signed up for a rather daunting task – working as the story director for the massive and practically holy sci-fi series The Wheel of Time by the late Robert Jordan.

Variety reports that this job entails "overseeing the writing on the titles, working with executive producers and writers to help develop story arcs and helping to digest the book series' 10,000 pages and over 1,700 characters."

(Of course, Morgan and the other two screenplay writers, Derek Haas and Michael Brandt, were taken to task by fans for not sticking to the original comic book story all that much. However, compared to comic book purists, the wrath of Robert Jordan fans can be deadly. Or so I hear.)

Morgan isn't the only screenwriter who has dipped his toes into the pixellated pool. Saw director James Wan is one of the writers for the Saw video game, which surprisingly got some good gamer feedback from its preview at SDCC. And David McKenna, who wrote American History X, Get Carter, Blow, and Bully, wrote Scarface: The World is Yours, which got generally mixed reviews.

Color me surprised.

I feel like I shouldn't be any time something gets in line to be remade, but I thought we would've heard about a remake of the J.A. Bayona-directed, Guillermo del Toro-produced thriller The Orphanage by now. Well, it's indeed in the works, with del Toro remaining on board as producer and Larry Fessenden (The Last Winter) being brought on as director, according to THR.

An actor, producer, director, writer and editor in his own right, Fessenden has no small familiarity with the horror genre -- even presently starring as a grave robber in this Friday's horror-comedy, I Sell the Dead -- and his more considered filmmaking style seems ideal for a story that turns out to have as much sorrow in store as spooks.

The Reporter notes the the project is still in need of a lead actress. The original hinged on Belén Rueda's wonderfully empathetic performance; who do you think could fill the role of leading lady in this case? Not to dwell on that Lovely Bones post, but I really do think Rachel Weisz could bring the right sensibility to this, or maybe Diane Lane... Your thoughts?

While speaking to fans during Comic Con, Peter Jackson revealed that The Hobbit is much farther away than fans have been led to believe: "Everyone assumes we're casting but we're not," he said. Recently rumors suggested that Jackson (who's producing this time around while Guillermo del Toro directs) would use this time at Con to announce who would play Bilbo Baggins in the much-anticipated double-feature prequel, though not only did he not reveal any names -- he claimed they're not even close to choosing one.

Jackson said that they're three or four weeks away from handing in the first draft of the script, and that the film isn't even really greenlit yet -- they still need to finish writing, get approval on the script, and have the budget approved before we will see any actual progress in the way of casting. While there is no doubt that the film will get made, it's still in that squishy working stage, and we shouldn't be scanning the trades for a Bilbo Baggins casting announcement for a few more months.

Hopefully, though, things will remain on target so that we'll all be able to watch the first Hobbit film when it hits theaters in December of 2011. We'll have more from Peter Jackson in a little while as Cinematical was one of a handful of sites who got to sit down for an intimate chat with the filmmaker. Stay tuned ...

Erik Davis contributed to this post

Hey, LOTR fans! Even though The Hobbit isn't due until 2011, the crew in New Zealand has already started digging some holes for the hobbitses. TheOneRing, your source for all things hairy-toed, has some very cool pictures of the rebuilding of Hobbiton. So far we're only seeing roads, foliage, and the aforementioned hobbit holes, but it's whetting the proverbial whistle for what will hopefully be more Hobbit news out of the San Diego Comic-Con, which starts later this week. Producer Peter Jackson will be there to talk up the deliciously apocalyptic District 9, but rumors abound that there will be Hobbit-y deets leaking out from those insanely packed halls.

So far Jackson's denied he will be announcing who will play Bilbo at SDCC. He told Empire, "We're starting to think about casting, but we're knee-deep in the script right now. And when we do go to actors, they're probably going to ask to see a script, so we're powering ahead with getting the first draft done." It's not like both he and Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro aren't already working on enough different projects to make my head spin, but a fanboy or girl can hope, right? Right now, the odds-on favorites are Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, Hot Scot™ James McAvoy, and David "Ten Inch" Tennant from Dr. Who. In turn, there are rumors that a Dr. Who movie will be announced at Comic-Con.

Stay tuned to Cinematical for the latest from Comc-Con! The crew there will be Tweeting it up from the convention floor.

Guy Pearce just doesn't do enough movies for my liking. It's not as though he's vanished, but he seems to maintain a fairly low profile every time he blows everyone away with a big, meaty part like L.A. Confidential or Memento. But he has a lot of great projects coming up (the most exciting of which has to be The Road), and he's added a very intriguing one to his slate: the remake of 1973's telepic Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pearce and Bailee Madison have joined Katie Holmes in Troy Nixey's remake. It's a fairly loose adaptation of the 1973 original, which was centered around a couple, Sally and Alex, who inherited an old mansion from Sally's grandmother. Sally accidentally uncovers a hellish portal that allows a bunch of demons to escape and wreck bloody havoc. Naturally, no one believes her, and is convinced she's having a nervous breakdown thanks to all that home repair. Because it was the 1970s, it didn't even end well for Sally who just wanted a new fireplace. For those tired of seeing "remake" tacked onto everything, and for fans of the original, you'll be happy to know that the new Dark isn't so much a remake as a story "inspired by" those demonic creatures of old.

Check out the rest of the story at The Horror Squad