Del Toro talks 'Madness'

Exclusive: Guillermo Del Toro discusses forthcoming features 'Hellboy 2' and 'At the Moutnains of Madness'.

Nov 22 2006

I finally met long-time hero Guillermo Del Toro this week, the brilliant fantasy filmmaker behind the likes of 'Cronos', 'The Devil's Backbone' and 'Pan's Labyrinth', perhaps the finest film of his career thus far.

As friendly, enthusiastic and passionate as any filmmaker I've ever met, he talked at length about violence, child actors and the evils of Hollywood and, more seriously, fascism.

I'll have the full Q&A on the site later in the week, but the genial Mexican also gave me an insight in the two projects he currently has in the pipeline.

First up is 'Hellboy 2', which is due to go into production early next year. 'It will shoot in Hungary and the idea is to make a movie that is more fun, more loose and more spectacular than the original,' he explained. 'We all learned our lessons doing the first one and we want to put them to work on the second one. Mike Mignola and I have come up with the story and it's a little closer to the comic books than the first one was.'

Sounds good, though the project that we're really excited about is Del Toro's proposed adaptation of HP Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness', and he had this to say on the subject:

'I'm trying to do a trailer to show the studio what the movie could be. I finished the script three years ago, I already have my designs and I believe we are three quarters of the way there but the studio needs another push. So I'm going to make a trailer to show Warner Brothers what the movie could be. Because I believe that movie could be absolutely amazing.

'The studio is very nervous about the cost and it not having a love story or a happy ending, but it's impossible to do either in the Lovecraft universe.

''Mountains of Madness' is a very difficult novel to adapt, but if we ever make it, it will be a great movie to see. It will be an event.'

Del Toro and Lovecraft sound like a match made in heaven, so come on Warners – forget about the trailer and greenlight this now. And if you can't wait till then for a slice of Guillermo genius, visit the stunning 'Pan's Labyrinth' site asap, and make sure you check out the film when it hits screens on Friday.

• 
•