Photo by Carolyn Johns.In a world where “blockbuster” often means “predictable” and subtitles equal commercial death, Guillermo del Toro is the exception that proves the rule. After breaking into the movie business with Cronos, his 1993 film about an ancient device that confers eternal life, the Mexican director successfully infused the usual Hollywood boilerplate with his artful sense of the gothic and grotesque in Mimic, Blade 2, and the Hellboy series. Then, following his success with action-packed comic-book adaptations, del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth—about a girl who invents an elaborate fantasy world in fascist, 1944 Spain—was nominated for six Oscars and won three, despite the use of subtitles. Del Toro now functions as Hollywood’s Jesuit-like professor of the macabre, consulting on all sorts of projects (such as Dreamworks’ Guardians) and mentoring first-time director Troy Nixey, whom he chose to remake Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a cult TV-movie,...
- 7/7/2011
- Vanity Fair
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