Guillermo Del Toro Shares A List Of Unproduced Scripts He’s Written & Laments The Time “Lost” Due To The Projects

If you’re a fan of unique and beautiful filmmaking, there’s probably one thing that we can all agree on — the world needs more Guillermo del Toro. The Oscar-winning filmmaker behind works like “The Shape of Water,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Devil’s Backbone,” and “Pacific Rim” may not be everyone’s favorite writer or director. However, you can’t deny that each and every project from del Toro is worth paying attention for. That’s what makes his recent Twitter posts so frustrating and sad.

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Del Toro recently went on Twitter to lament about the sheer amount of time “lost” due to projects that he spent time developing and writing but never completed, for whatever reason. And as you might expect, the list of projects is extensive.

Here’s the list of films and TV projects that del Toro says he “developed” that were “fully-written or co-written” by the filmmaker:

“The Witches”
“Justice League Dark”
“Beauty and the Beast”
“At the Mountains of Madness”
“Fantastic Voyage”
“The Count of Monte Cristo”
“Mephisto’s Bridge”
“Pacific Rim 2” (which he says is a “very different” version)
“Secret Project (Untitled)”
“Superstitious”
“Nightmare Alley”
“Haunted Mansion”
“The Hulk” TV pilot
“The Buried Giant”
“The Coffin”
“Drood”
“List of 7” (co-written with Mark Frost)
“Wind in the Willows”

He also says there are “a few others” but doesn’t specify which projects he’s speaking of. All told, del Toro has listed 18 projects that he spent significant amounts of time on that never saw the light of day. And these aren’t small films or TV series either. Many of the projects listed are huge, big-budget affairs that were long-gestating but never got the greenlight, for a myriad of reasons.

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Why is del Toro listing all these projects? He explains, “The thing is- each script takes about a year, so- more than a decade of work lost (in the case of mountains, much more, since we scouted and designed etc).”

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So, this is a way of showing fans that even though the filmmaker doesn’t have a new project every year like others in the industry, he’s constantly working on new things and feels that he’s “lost” more than a decade of time to these projects that never saw fruition.

Hopefully, we don’t add “Pinocchio” to the list. It was recently announced that del Toro’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning “The Shape of Water” would be a stop-motion film based on the classic tale, which will be distributed by Netflix.

1/2 SCREENPLAYS I have developed, fully written or co-written that have gone unproduced (so far):
THE WITCHES, JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, FANTASTIC VOYAGE, THE COUNT OF MONTECRISTO, MEPHISTO'S BRIDGE, PACIFIC RIM 2 (very different),

— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) November 26, 2018