Guillermo del Toro just can’t stay away from the world of mysterious and mythical beasts. And now he’s after the world’s children, setting up his first animated pic, partnering with DreamWorks Animation to write and direct Trollhunters.
Plus, because he appears to be the filmmaking equivalent of a shark that dies if it stops swimming, del Toro has also signed on as a consultant and executive producer for several upcoming DreamWorks ‘toons, including Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom, Puss in Boots and another, yet-to-be-announced film (though surely he’d have a hand in ghostly adventure Boo U).
Trollhunters, which may not be the movie’s final title, is based on a young-adult book that del Toro has sent to Hyperion to be published and that he’s been working on for years. Along with the approximately five gazillion other things he’s been cooking up. You might think it’s not possible for one man to have his fingers in so many pies, but he has a trick: "People say, 'How does he do it?' Well, I don't work on them at the same time," del Toro says. "Midnight Delivery, I wrote 11 years ago. The fact that they are happening now is flattering and great, but it doesn't mean I'm writing seven screenplays at one time." No, he’s just producing and directing one (At The Mountains of Madness, which should hopefully see the greenlight flashing soon), producing five or six others, co-writing novels and now working on animation.
"I wanted very much to develop a story that could be written for kids but dealt with a genre that was scary," he tells the Heat Vision Blog. "It essentially combines fairy tales with modern times and is about how difficult it is to be a kid. Normally, kids are idealized in animated films. But the growing pains, married with the notion that there is a world right next to us that is completely plagued by creatures of ancient lore, it's thematically fitting with the rest of my stuff."
Apparently we can thank regular director of photography Guillermo Navarro with getting GTD to work with DWA, since he had a prior relationship with the company after consulting on Madagascar’s cinematography.
Don’t go expecting the movie for a while yet, though – in addition to the fact that it usually takes around three/four years to make one of these things, del Toro has only just kicked off work on the script.
While the Heat Vision Blog gets the credit for getting the writer/director/supernaturally busy man to nail down the details of his involvement, a tip of the hat must go to Collider, who had him on camera talking up the prospect of animation at DreamWorks a couple of weeks ago.