Guillermo del Toro Reveals List of Unproduced Screenplays
Guillermo del Toro loves movies. This much we know for sure. The Oscar-winning filmmaker loves movies so much, that he took a bit of flack in the past for being attached to so many projects at once, only for a select few of them to actually come to fruition. But those who lamented his litany of projects neglected to understand how Hollywood works, nor appreciate that del Toro's passionate candor was the only reason we knew of so many of these projects.
The truth is, a number of directors of del Toro's stature develop multiple projects at once. In Hollywood, you never know exactly when a movie is going to be greenlit to shoot. You can put all your eggs in one basket, only for the entire project to fall apart weeks—or even days—before filming is due to begin. If you have nothing else developed at that time, it's back to Square One.
But in del Toro's case—and in the case of a number of other filmmakers like him who are far less forthcoming with the number of projects they're currently developing—he's spinning many plates at once. This means that when a project like At the Mountains of Madness gets scuttled, del Toro can move right into Pacific Rim, because the latter project was already being developed. But this also means that a number of the projects del Toro has developed have yet to get made.
The director took to Twitter today to run down a list of screenplays that he's written or co-written that have yet to come to fruition, lamenting the time and work lost on these projects that never happened. It's a fascinating and infuriating list (will someone please pay for At the Mountains of Madness already?!), but it's also important to keep in mind that sometimes projects take decades to happen. Steven Spielberg developed Lincoln for a very long time before the film was finally made, and del Toro's next project—a stop-motion animated Pinocchio for Netflix—has been in development since at least 2012.
Here's the list of unproduced Guillermo del Toro screenplays that the filmmaker revealed:
2/2 SECRET PROJECT (UNTITLED), SUPERSTITIOUS, NIGHTMARE ALLEY, HAUNTED MANSION, THE HULK pilot, THE BURIED GIANT, THE COFFIN, DROOD, LIST OF 7 (Mark Frost) and a few others…
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) November 26, 2018
You may be wondering how close some of these projects came to happening, in what form, and why they haven't happened yet. Luckily, again due to del Toro's passionate candor, we have some extensive information on some of these projects. So let's take a closer look at what they are, with the hopes that someday del Toro's screenplays will be produced.
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• At the Mountains of Madness • Beauty and the Beast • Fantastic Voyage • Guillermo del Toro • Haunted Mansion • Justice League Dark • Marvel • Marvel TV • Pacific Rim 2 • The Count of Monte Cristo • The Hulk • The Witches