Director Guillermo del Toro has been reflecting on films he never got to make, including a Jabba the Hutt Star Wars movie and Pacific Rim 2.
It goes without saying that Guillermo del Toro has made some great films over the years. As with any filmmaker though, there are always plenty of films with just as much potential that shall remain locked away for ever in his imagination. The Pan’s Labyrinth director has been chatting about a couple of them, including a Star Wars project that almost happened that would have seen del Toro apply his love of movie monsters to an iconic and grotesque sci-fi creature.
Participating in a recent Q&A for Pacific Rim’s 10th anniversary, del Toro offered a few more details on his unmade Star Wars film, a project that was first revealed a few weeks back by writer David Goyer.
Collider asked del Toro about how close the project came to reality, with del Toro joking that he doesn’t believe a movie is being made until he has the home formats release on his shelf.
“I believe I’m always going to happen when the Blu-ray comes out. That’s when I know it’s going to happen. There’s always, in the last moment, things go away. I’ve had it happen many, many, many times. We had the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt, so I was super happy. We were doing a lot of stuff, and then… you know, it’s not my property it’s not my money. It’s one of those thirty screenplays that goes away, you know.”
Among a wide range of talents, del Toro is renowned for his talent at depicting monsters on screen, not to mention production design that has a hand-crafted feel. A Jabba the Hutt Star Wars film could have been pretty wonderful coming from a filmmaker with those twin talents, but although he may have been disappointed, del Toro has elected to try and remain sanguine about the experience.
He admitted that “sometimes I’m bitter, sometimes I’m not, I always turn to my team and say ‘good practice guys, good practice’. We designed a great world, we designed great stuff, we learned. You can never be ungrateful with life. Whatever life sends you, there’s something to be learned from it.”
The filmmaker also revealed that the reason he didn’t direct 2018’s Pacific Rim 2: Uprising simply came down to the fact that those in charge of the purse strings forgot to book sound stages by a key deadline. When that messed with the production’s timeline, he chose to walk away to make The Shape Of Water. Not a bad decision as it turned out. The filmmaker is working on a take on Frankenstein next for Netflix, not to mention another stop motion film too. We’ll bring you more del Toro updates as we hear them.
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