The five best movies Guillermo del Toro never made
In no uncertain terms, Guillermo del Toro is one of the greatest filmmakers of the modern age. Across his work in his native Spanish and international English-language ventures, the Mexican maestro has proven that he has one of the most active imaginations in all of cinema. Capable of creating darkness and chaos just as well as beauty and hope, del Toro’s movies are always worth seeing, even if you’re not the biggest fan of giant robots punching each other.
Pan’s Labyrinth is still regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made, while The Shape of Water swept the Oscars and landed del Toro the coveted ‘Best Director’ prize. Then there are his more mainstream ventures, like Hellboy and the robot extravaganza Pacific Rim, both of which are fun in their own ways. More recently, he brought Pinocchio to life in a gorgeous stop-motion adventure, and early adopters will remember the terror they felt when they first stumbled across Cronos.
Here’s the thing about del Toro, though. As much as he loves making movies, he loves not making them even more. This guy has an utterly insane list of unrealised projects. He’s been attached to projects, offered projects, pitched projects, and he has mentioned projects off-handedly in interviews, and none of them have come to pass. All of this is a crying shame, because some of them sound fascinating.
Of course, we’ll never know how these hypothetical films would have turned out in real life. However, with del Toro behind the wheel and these killer premises in his hands, they probably would have been something special.
Guillermo del Toro’s five best unmade movies
‘Dark Universe’
If the previous entry about Doctor Strange hadn’t made it obvious, Del Toro is a massive comic book fan. He’s made two movies based on the dark horse character Hellboy and directed the second instalment in the Blade franchise. If things had gone differently, though, he might have been part of one of the biggest comic book movie franchises around. He was initially hired to make Man of Steel, the first instalment in the DC Extended Universe, but handed the reins to Zack Snyder instead. DC was clearly still on his mind, however, as he almost made another film in their world.
Del Toro confirmed in 2013 that he was working on a DC project called ‘Dark Universe’. Based on the Justice League Dark series of comic books, the film would have focused on some of the lesser-known, grittier characters in the DC canon, like John Constantine and Swamp Thing. The movie hinged on the success of the Constantine TV show, but when that was cancelled after one season, the wheels started to fall off. By 2015, it was officially announced that del Toro had walked away, effectively leaving the project dead in the water.
‘The Hobbit’
When Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy hit cinemas, fans waited with bated breath to see what would come next from the world of Middle-earth. If they’d only known… Between 2012 and 2014, Jackson released three more movies based on J R R Tolkein’s novel The Hobbit. Starring Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, the films took a 310-page book and stretched it out over 474 minutes (532 if you count the extended editions). Though not terrible, the movies felt seriously bloated, even with all the additional stuff that wasn’t in the book. They had to add an entirely new character played by Evangeline Lilly. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been any women anywhere near this plot.
Initially, del Toro was going to direct a two-part adaptation of the book. He had been working with Jackson to write screenplays for the films, but various complications and scheduling changes derailed his plans. He eventually departed from it, but still maintained his co-writing credit. In an interview with Premiere, del Toro stated that, “The first film will stand on its own, and the second will be a transition and fusion with Peter’s world.” Whatever he was going to do, it would have been a damn-sight more interesting than what we got.
‘Doctor Strange’
In 2016, Marvel released the 14th film of their cinematic universe, Doctor Strange. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular character, the movie introduced the ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ into the fold, establishing a vital part of the ‘Infinity saga’ and introducing the ‘Mind Stone’, one of the six ‘Infinity Gems’ that would play a pivotal role in the series’ big finale of the first installment. It got strong reviews and made a typically large sum at the box office, which was great news for director Scott Derrickson. This wasn’t the first time a film centred on the character was pitched, though.
Nine years previously, del Toro had gone to Marvel to pitch his own idea for a Doctor Strange film. He wanted to set the movie in the 1920s and frame the character as a washed-up alcoholic who is forced to find himself in the face of a new threat. Author Neil Gaiman was onboard to write the script, tweeting in 2015, “I wish Marvel had been interested in a @Real GDT & me Dr Strange movie because I wanted to write Clea so badly after 1602.” Although given the recent allegations against Gaiman that would eventually surface, Marvel and del Toro both dodged a significant bullet.
‘Silver’
Following the success of Cronos, del Toro turned his attention to his next project. He started writing the script for another, more horror-inflected flick, which would be about an ageing Mexican wrestler fighting a group of corrupt politicians. However, because this is a del Toro joint, the politicians would be secret vampires. Why the hell not? The premise for Silver sounds absolutely insane, which would have played right into the director’s hands. Unfortunately, it proved too much even for the man himself, as he simply hasn’t been able to finish the script.
He has admitted that he’s been ‘stuck on page 60’ of the Silver script for several decades now. Rumours continue to fly about the film’s progress; he originally wanted to make it in 2006, before announcing his intention to finally produce the picture before entering production on Pacific Rim 2. Alas, this didn’t happen. He also didn’t direct Pacific Rim 2, in case you’re keeping score. Word has been quiet on the Silver front for a number of years now, but he’s clearly keen on the idea, so don’t count this one out just yet.
‘Omnivore’
Del Toro’s first feature-length release was 1992’s Cronos. A horror drama about a device that allows people to live forever, the film took the critical world by storm and set the young director on the path to greatness. However, this was never the original plan for his debut. He initially wanted to make a stop-motion film called Omnivore. Set in a world where creatures can only survive by eating everything and everyone they come across, the story would have followed the plight of a half-man, half-reptile caught in a vicious battle for survival.
The script, which was entirely in the Nahuatl language, was written, and all the puppets were made. Unfortunately, fate had other plans. “One night, we went to dinner and to a movie,” del Toro told Polygon. “When we came back, our place had been burglarised. They had destroyed every puppet, they had pooped and peed on the floor.” With animation dreams lying in ruins (among other bodily refuse), del Toro turned his attention to live action and settled on Cronos as his first project instead. The rest, as they say, is history.
