Guillermo del Toro to Direct Crimson Peak, Gives a Status Update on At The Mountains of Madness

Guillermo del Toro has no shortage of projects on his plate to choose from and we've been wondering what he'd direct after Pacific Rim. It isn't Hellboy 3, Pacific Rim 2, or the DC movie he was recently looking into. Instead, he'll be directing the ghost story, Crimson Peak, for Legendary Pictures.

According to Deadline, del Toro has written the script with Matthew Robbins and here's how he described the project: “a very set-oriented, classical but at the same time modern take on the ghost story. It will allow me to play with the conventions of the genre I know and love, and at the same time subvert the old rules.”

Guillermo del Toro also mentioned that Legendary Pictures is giving him a decent budget for this film and he's aiming for a movie that can sit next to some of the great classic horror films. Here's what he had to say about his influences:

“To me that is Robert Wise’s The Haunting, which was a big movie, beautifully directed, with the house built magnificently. And the other grand daddy is Jack Clayton’s The Innocents. I’ve always tried to make big-sized horror movies like the ones I grew up watching,” del Toro said. “Films like The Omen, The Exorcist and The Shining, the latter of which is another Mount Everest of the haunted house movie. I loved the way that Kubrick had such control over the big sets he used, and how much big production value there was. I think people are getting used to horror subjects done as found footage or B-value budgets. I wanted this to feel like a throwback.”

“They [Legendary Pictures] love it, but we just finished Pacific Rim... They want to let that film happen [it opens July 12] and then my hope is, down the line we can do it. People ask how do i choose projects. All the projects in my roster are there because I love them, but the financing process is serendipity. And often, the ones I think will happen don’t, and the ones I think won’t happen, do.”