Even though he couldn’t get his dream project of HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness up and running, Guillermo Del Toro’s had a very busy year.
Yes, Del Toro’s new project, Pacific Rim, is ready to roll. Plus, he produced this summer’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, all while balancing a full plate of potential projects ranging from a big screen version of Disney’s theme park attraction The Haunted Mansion, to a remake of Frankenstein.
Of course, he also helped out behind the scenes on the #1 movie in America right now, the Shrek spin-off known as the beloved Puss in Boots.
As Film Journal reports, Del Toro was as an advisor at DreamWorks, where he worked as a creative consultant on Kung Fu Panda 2, and Megamind, and now has an executive producer credit on the ultimate cat movie.
Unsurprisingly, Del Toro loves it at DreamWorks, telling writer Kevin Lally, “I’ve been trying to do animation for a while. As I watched more animation, I started to feel very envious of the medium because of the control of the film language that it offers, in terms of color, textures, rhythm.”
Del Toro feels the first Shrek film was “revolutionary… turning a lot of fairytale clichés on their ear.” With Puss in Boots, “There were people who said, ‘Oh, we’re going to see another Shrek spinoff,’ and I became actively involved in trying to give the movie a different type of humor and a different type of beauty.”
Chris Miller, director of Puss in Boots, told the L.A. Times, “Guillermo was a gift to us. The film had been coming together in this great way, but we had hit the point where in a weird way we had taken it as far as we could. We needed someone to liberate us creatively and sort of shake the tree. He expanded the way we saw the film at the perfect time in the process.”
In addition to his duties on Puss, Del Toro worked on Rise of the Guardians, due for release next November, which turns the myths of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, and other childhood legends on their ear.
Plus, Del Toro has his own animated feature set up at DreamWorks, Trollhunters. Once he’s done with Pacific Rim, he can’t wait to get back to helping out at DreamWorks. “Every minute I’m at DreamWorks is the happiest day of my week,” he said.
