Guillermo del Toro (director of 'Hellboy 1 and 2' and 'Pan's Labyrinth') is now the latest director to decline the offer to direct one of the new ‘Star Wars’ films in the new trilogy, particularly ‘Episode VII’.
This announcement came on Jan. 8. Del Toro told The Playlist that he was approached by the producers of the new trilogy through his agent late last year following Disney’s purchase of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise (for a widely-touted $4.05 billion dollars). Currently they plan on developing a second trilogy, especially Episodes VII, VIII, and IX (following the children of all the characters of the original trilogy as the Rebellion takes the galaxy back and the Empire becomes more of a terrorist organization).
‘We got one phone call to my agent saying, “Is Guillermo interested?”’ Del Toro told The Wrap. ‘And basically I have so much stuff already of my own, and I'm pursuing stuff that I'm generating already …It was very flattering. It was just a phone call, it didn't go past that, it was very nice to be asked, but believe it or not, I'm busy enough.’
Thus the director turned down the offer. He’s now joining a group including J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, and Brad Bird—all famed Hollywood directors who turned down the chance to direct the new trilogy. The only director who has shown more than a glimmer of hope in directing is Matthew Vaughn (‘Kick-Ass’, ‘Stardust’); also, all the stars of the original trilogy, including Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), and Carrie Fisher (Priness Leia) have all confirmed they’d be willing to return for the new trilogy. Also, Michael Arndt, the Academy Award-nominated co-writer of ‘Toy Story 3’, is slated as the writer for the new trilogy.
Del Toro is currently busy wrapping up filming on his new giant-robot-giant-monster film, ‘Pacific Rim’. It is scheduled for a July 2013 release. He is also planning a film titled ‘1952’ starring George Clooney, and he still hopes to begin work—one day—one his H.P. Lovecraft adaption, ‘In the Mountain of Madness’.
‘I’m going to do it one more time. One more time into the abyss,’ del Toro said of the long-in-development project. It was canceled last year by Universal. ‘We're gonna do a big presentation of the project again at the start of the year and see if any [studio is] interested. Tom [Cruise] is still attached.’
For more, read the article on The Guardian by Ben Child.
Comments