Guillermo del Toro may be up to the Pale Man's eyeballs in haunted mansion horror Crimson Peak and FX's upcoming vampire show The Strain, but he has still found time to lend a hand with The Book Of Life, an CG animation inspired by Mexico's famous Dia de Muertos festival. A new trailer for the film, hitherto shrouded in mystery, has dropped and **Empire **is happy to share it with you.
The Book Of Life is the brainchild of Mexican animator and artist Jorge Gutierrez, its director and, with American screenwriter Doug Langdale, co-scribe, and his painterly creations look kaleidoscopic and macabre in the best **Corpse Bride-**sense of the words.
The trio have crafted a Romeo And Juliet-style tale of a matador, Manolo (Diego Luna), and town hotshot Joaquin (Channing Tatum), both vying for the attentions of a beautiful girl called Maria (Zoë Saldana). Things clearly go substantially awry for Manolo when he's bitten by a snake and sent plunging into a trippy underworld filled with strange beasties and on an adventure "that spans three fantastical worlds where he must face his greatest fears". Those worlds are The Land of the Living, the Land of the Remembered, and the Land of the Forgotten. So not *exactly *like Romeo And Juliet, then. The gothic detailing and atmospherics, both beloved del Toro trademarks, bode well for Reel FX (Free Birds) and Fox Animation's first collaboration.
With Cheech Marin, Christina Applegate, Ron Perlman, Danny Trejo and the great Placido Domingo also lending their vocal chords,** The Book Of Life **arrives in UK cinemas on October 24, Halloweentime.