The Mexican horror maestro has outdone himself with this week’s Pan’s Labyrinth
, the Golden Palm-nominated adult fairy tale which should be a shoe-in for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars, at the very least. For his next project, though, he will be returning to Hollywood for a sequel to his interesting (if flawed) 2004 comic book adaptation Hellboy. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army will see the return of the big red crime-fighting demon, as played by the heavily made-up Ron Perlman, along with the object of his affection, Selma Blair.
Set for release in 2008, if you can’t wait that long, try to track down the made for TV cartoon spin-offs Hellboy: Sword of Storms and Hellboy: Blood and Iron – del Toro may only have acted as Consultant Producer, but pretty much all the stars of the first film – Perlman, Blair and even the top-notch John Hurt – have lent their voices to the two feature-length animations.
After Hellboy 2, del Toro seems to be set to return to Spain and the impact of the Spanish Civil War, the setting for both Pan’s Labyrinth and 2001’s The Devil’s Backbone, for 1990s-set 3993, described by del Toro as
“a movie that, if I do it, would close the trilogy of Spanish Civil War movies, because it’s about a character in 1993 who believes that civil war is a thing of the past. And something from 1939 comes to life and proves that it’s not — that it’s pretty much alive.”
Sounds interesting, at least, should it happen – but if it does, don’t expect it to arrive much before 2009.
Pocket Films Blog 