Remember when we joked that Guillermo del Toro really didn’t have time to be working on anything else besides the thousands of projects he’s busy overseeing, developing, directing, writing or producing? Turns out he did have one extra little trick up his sleeve: he’s gone and formed his own studio in Los Angeles.
Well, okay, it’s not technically the same thing as, say, Fox or Disney, but Mirada is a 25,000 sq ft space in the city’s Marina del Rey district created by del Toro, along with partners Mathew Cullen, Javier Jimenez and Guillermo Navarro.
“We are creating a storytelling engine in the form of a company – an imaginarium, where we are free to explore the practical possibilities of transmedia without compartmentalizing our artistic process,” he says. “Mirada will be an adaptive entity, constantly in transformation. We see a different model that looks beyond what the market is doing right now to where it will be in ten years."
Talking to Deadline, he reveals that the idea really solidified in his head when he was based in New Zealand, working with Peter Jackson on The Hobbit and gearing up to direct it. Inspired by Jackson’s impressive film facilities, he decided to create his own once he left the Hobbit directing job behind.
"We didn't have the Wellington model in mind when we were talking, but one of the great things about it was how close every facility was to each other," del Toro tells the site. "Our intention here is to be nimble and guided by strong, traditionally rooted storytelling principles. We will have all these pieces under one roof, and build a strong creative community here that will nurture future storytellers. Some of the feature projects I have going in the near future will hopefully go through Mirada, which means 'point of view.' One of the ideas for me was to create a company that could become a home for me to be able to work."
You know, this really does explain what all the banging, sawing and screaming of a thousand nameless horrors was about just up the road from where Empire’s Man In LA was staying at a friend’s house.