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'Monsters Are My Pals': Guillermo del Toro Builds The World Of Pacific Rim

Guillermo del Toro has spent his entire career making monster movies. From the ghosts of The Devil’s Backbone to the creatures of Pan’s Labyrinth to the heroes of Hellboy, the director has long used the mysterious beings to tell all different kinds of stories with different messages and themes. But with Pacific Rim, the filmmaker’s latest, he has taken his love of monsters to a whole new level…one about 25 stories high.



Prior to the new film’s release, I had the chance to sit down one-on-one with del Toro to talk about everything that went into the making of his latest movie, from the size of the expanded world, to his contributions to the original concept, to finding material that he is really passionate about. And could At The Mountains of Madness have a future at Legendary Pictures? Read on to find out!



Over the course of your career you’ve always made genre films, but at the same time all of your films are different in their storytelling approach, tonally… So when you are first approaching a project, what is it that makes you say yes? What is it that you’re looking for?



I need to want to dedicate two or three years of my life to it, because that’s how long it takes and I need to fall in love completely. There really haven’t been, the only two projects, no, there’s only one project that I didn’t start. I was late to. The rest of the projects, I’ve been there creating them, including Pacific Rim, which I created from the treatment with Travis [Beacham], all the way to the movie. So, what I need to feel is that I have a chance to make it what I want to make it. Sometimes it happens, sometimes is doesn’t, like Mimic, was really frustrating, but it needs to be that.



Is experimentation part of it, just kind of trying to do something new?



No, I just think, you know, whatever I’ve done, I always have done in the throes of passion, not like that, literally fall in love madly, like a kid with the things I do, and basically, almost nothing has ever stopped me, you know, like Pan’s Labyrinth, I did against all odds. Nobody wanted to do it. It was really difficult, blah, blah, blah. And I ended up doing it. Pacific Rim was monumental movie, one that looks much more than its budget, than if it’s a big budget. And I wanted to deliver it... I made it a point to say I’m going to deliver it on budget. I failed. I delivered it under budget. I gave them a chunk of change, but the reality is that I want to basically take premises that nobody takes seriously, like ideas that normally are approached with a lot of postmodern winking or a lot of re-constructivism and do them with the passion and care and attention to detail and dedication that is not normal, you know, and I was thinking, well, you look at the Kaiju genre and for my generation or your generation, we saw it when we were kids, but for the new generations those movies are not a fresh experience. So, I’m almost trying to be a bridge between that generation and a new generation of Kaiju lovers.



There are films that take simple concepts and decide that they won’t work for modern audiences because we’re too smart for them but, really, this is a film that starts with giant monsters versus giant robots and it’s exactly as advertised. To a certain degree I think that’s a valuable thing



Well, the thing is, and my wife often makes fun of me. She says, “Why don’t you take a franchise or something that is actually easy to do? That’s an easy sell.” When I said to my wife, “I just turned down this or that movie,” she said, “Of course. It would be too easy.” And the reality is that I feel, look, I never made a movie to be in the big budget game. I never made a movie to win an Oscar or be nominated, but I’ve been able to do it all on my own terms. That is, for me, the only really valuable thing about my movies, that they’ve all brought me great satisfaction in their own terms.



What was your first meeting with Travis Beacham like? There was talk about this project back in 2010.



Well, we knew each other farther than that. We knew each other from The Killing at Carnival Row, and then, after we developed that, he send this synopsis to Legendary and my manager and agent sent me the synopsis and I don’t do, I almost never engage in projects that I don’t generate and they sent me the synopsis, with the message email, the reference was, “Pass?” and I said, “No, I want to take the meeting. This is great, “and I went and I said, “I’m going to tell Legendary my craziest ideas up front and if they react, I’ll do it,” and I told them I wanted it to be two pilots drifting with a neural bridge. I wanted this and that…and they said, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” and Thomas [Tull] said, “But you’ve for to direct it,” and I said, “Well, I’m doing Mountains of Madness” and he said, “Well, will you co-write it and produce it and if you are not doing Mountains of Madness, will you then direct it?” and I said, “Yes,” and the moment Mountains collapsed on a Friday, Monday I was doing this.



You work so much within the practical realm, but with this film obviously, nobody was going to let you build 30-story monster and robots. Was that ever a point of concern for you?



No, because, look, even if you look as early and as far, even if you look back just to Hellboy II, the elemental is a gigantic CG effort. The two fairies on that movie, completely CGI. The golden army, completely CG and Hellboy I, Blade, they all had a degree of sophisticated digital effects, that I’m really comfortable with.



So, it’s basically, as long as you have that practical technique to work off of…



What you need to do, is you say, digital needs to be used as a last resource. I don’t think it’s a good resource or a bad resource, but if people use it as a lazy short-cut, it’s terrible, but if you use it as the, “Ok, I cannot do this as practical. How do I do it?” and even then, we used miniatures.



Really? Oh, that’s awesome.



In a couple of the scenes, what you see are miniatures.



It’s also a point that we’ve really ever seen anything designed like these monsters or even the mechs.



Well, because we based the mechs on real machines. We were working from an archive of photographs of submarines, planes, reactors, and when we were working on the Kaiju, we were working with a huge archive of real animals and all that.



I also wanted to ask about the international element of this film, because it is something that we’ve actually seen growing in blockbuster entertainment recently. Part of it is because of the growing importance of international box office, but as an international filmmaker yourself, how you feel about the globalization of major films like this?



For me, the interesting thing was to actually show the staple characters on an action movie like this on a different light, like Charlie Day is the strangest type of scientist you can find. You almost never have a leader quite like Idris Elba with a real North London accent. Then, when you get an Asian girl in an action movie, it’s a sex object. And you’ve never seen a character like Rinko and you always end up with a forced love story, you know. All these choices are to go counter, but still use the sort of staple characters of a movie like this.



Even to see most of the movie set in Hong Kong is a big change-up.



Well, let me put it this way, instead of destroying New York, we go and have the main battle in Hong Kong. I wanted the movie, from the get go, I said to them, I don’t want to make a war movie. I want to make an adventure movie, and one of the things I loved as a kid was The Jungle Book, Zoltan Korda’s The Jungle Book and I loved the exotism and I said I want to take this movie and set it in a Slavic locale. I’d rather set it up in Hong Kong, Tokyo, blah, blah, blah and take them to places adventure movies normally don’t go.



You largely avoid the Roland Emmerich thing. You destroy cities, but you don’t necessarily destroy big landmarks.



And I think that was done earlier by King Kong or Ray Harryhausen. Ray Harryhausen took the Golden Gate Bridge. King Kong takes the Empire State Building. It’s very linked to monster movies. Monster movies you always need a landmark to be destroyed.



I also do want to ask about your future projects as well, because you have Crimson Peak in the works right now. You’re planning on beginning next year, right?



January.



So you’re starting to build that world.



Well, we are halfway through the preproduction of The Strain. We start shooting that in September. we already opened offices for Crimson Peak. We already are in the middle of designing the house. I have a full art department. Wardrobe comes in two weeks from now and I’m going to be prepping Crimson Peak while shooting The Strain and we shoot Crimson Peak in January.



Your work ethic is absolutely off the charts. How do you not burn out?



I don’t know. I’ve always been like this. Now it’s very public, but this is the way I did Cronos and when I did Cronos, I was still doing makeup effects. My company was running. I was sculpting, I was painting, I was servicing movies, storyboarding for other movies. I was doing a lot of that stuff. So same with, when I did Pan’s Labyrinth, I was writing the screenplay for Hellboy II, to give you an example, and I was preparing The Orphanage as a producer.



And you were writing The Strain during Hellboy II, also, right?



I was writing The Strain after Pan’s Labyrinth, during Hellboy II, during The Hobbit, and so forth. it’s always been like this and this morning, 4:30 am, I finished polishing a script of The Strain, send it to Carlton Cuse. Tomorrow morning, I am writing Dark Universe, polishing the outline.



Awesome.



I really don’t like daily life that much. I really don’t. I’m socially inept. I don’t enjoy nor am I good at social interactions. Monsters are my pals.



Over this entire time that you’ve been working on this project, you’ve constantly sung the praises of Legendary and you were even talking earlier about how they kept saying yes to all of your ideas. At the Mountains of Madness, have you pitched them on that?



Yeah, we almost made it this year. They picked Crimson Peak because they didn’t want to do two big movies in a row with me, Pacific and Mountains. Crimson Peak is much smaller. It’s about a quarter of the cost, and it’s about 50 million, and they said they’d rather gamble on that and then after that, maybe Mountains, you know.



So, it’s just a maybe at this point?



It’s a maybe, but I’m going to get it made. Don Murphy, who does some producing with me. Don never gives up, I don’t know if you know him, but Don is like a force of nature. For me, the interesting thing was to actually show the staple characters on an action movie like this on a different light, like Charlie Day is the strangest type of scientist you can find. You almost never have a leader quite like Idris Elba with a real North London accent. Then, when you get an Asian girl in an action movie, it’s a sex object. And you’ve never seen a character like Rinko and you always end up with a forced love story, you know. All these choices are to go counter, but still use the sort of staple characters of a movie like this.Well, let me put it this way, instead of destroying New York, we go and have the main battle in Hong Kong. I wanted the movie, from the get go, I said to them, I don’t want to make a war movie. I want to make an adventure movie, and one of the things I loved as a kid was, Zoltan Korda’sand I loved the exotism and I said I want to take this movie and set it in a Slavic locale. I’d rather set it up in Hong Kong, Tokyo, blah, blah, blah and take them to places adventure movies normally don’t go.And I think that was done earlier by King Kong or Ray Harryhausen. Ray Harryhausen took the Golden Gate Bridge. King Kong takes the Empire State Building. It’s very linked to monster movies. Monster movies you always need a landmark to be destroyed.January.Well, we are halfway through the preproduction of. We start shooting that in September. we already opened offices forWe already are in the middle of designing the house. I have a full art department. Wardrobe comes in two weeks from now and I’m going to be preppingwhile shootingand we shootin January.I don’t know. I’ve always been like this. Now it’s very public, but this is the way I didand when I did, I was still doing makeup effects. My company was running. I was sculpting, I was painting, I was servicing movies, storyboarding for other movies. I was doing a lot of that stuff. So same with, when I didI was writing the screenplay forto give you an example,and I was preparingas a producer.I was writingafter, during, during, and so forth. it’s always been like this and this morning, 4:30 am, I finished polishing a script of, send it to Carlton Cuse. Tomorrow morning, I am writing, polishing the outline.I really don’t like daily life that much. I really don’t. I’m socially inept. I don’t enjoy nor am I good at social interactions. Monsters are my pals.Yeah, we almost made it this year. They pickedbecause they didn’t want to do two big movies in a row with me,andis much smaller. It’s about a quarter of the cost, and it’s about 50 million, and they said they’d rather gamble on that and then after that, maybe, you know.It’s a maybe, but I’m going to get it made. Don Murphy, who does some producing with me. Don never gives up, I don’t know if you know him, but Don is like a force of nature.