Just how many movies can Guillermo del Toro attach his name to before he has to start building a robot duplicate of himself (with Lightning Nipple Tweaking Action!™) to oversee everything that’s on his plate while also writing/producing/directing his own projects? He’s testing that limit with one more film, developing Midnight Delivery for Universal.
Neil Cross, who has been building a solid portfolio of telly writing work by creating Idris Elba ‘tec drama Luther and pumping out episodes of Spooks (or MI-5 as they prefer to call it across the pond), is stepping over to film screenplays for the first time.
Delivery follows a man who has to become a drug mule in order to save his son’s life. We don’t yet know if that means he needs the money to pay for some medical treatment or if his sprog is kidnapped by nasty narco types and the father is forced to go all Maria Full of Grace to secure his safe release.
It’s early days for the project, and since it comes via Pajiba’s Hollywood Cog source (who has been enjoying a healthy hit rate of rumour-to-reality recently), we’ll list it as a “watch this space” story for now.
Del Toro, meanwhile, is already shepherding Dan Simmons' eerie, Gothic Dickens story Drood, the American remake of The Orphanage and Crimson Peak, based on one of the scripts he co-wrote with Mimic’s Matthew Robbins. Talking of Del Toro/Robbins collaborations, their latest production,** Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark**, hits us on March 4 next year.