When you see a single frame from a Guillermo del Toro movie, you know it’s one of his. Gorgeous production design, affectionately monstrous creatures, white-collar human villains, a deeply Gothic visual sensibility; his work has all kinds of hallmarks, while remaining fresh every time. And yet, as he finally makes his Frankenstein adaptation – something of a white whale project – it seems the director envisions himself at the end of a particular era.
“This movie closes the cycle,” he tells Empire in the Wicked: For Good issue. “If you look at the lineage, from Cronos to The Devil’s Backbone, to Pan’s Labyrinth to Crimson Peak to this, this is an evolution of a certain type of aesthetic, and a certain type of rhythm, and a certain type of empathy.” It’s an evolution that has maybe reached its apotheosis. “I feel like I need a change,” he admits – with the caveat that he may well change his mind. “You never know,” he says. “The day after tomorrow, I may want to do Jekyll & Hyde, or whatever. But right now, my desire is to try and do something very different.”
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While Frankenstein marks the end result of a long production and development journey, don’t expect every del Toro film-that-got-away project to eventually make it to our screens. “The one that’s on the bucket list that I think is gonna stay there is [At The Mountains Of Madness],” he says. “It’s too big, too crazy, too R-rated, I guess. And to be completely candid, I don’t know that I want to do it after this.” Whatever comes next, the world will be watching.