Guillermo Del Toro Hasn't Lost Interest in 'HARRY POTTER'
The Oscar-nominated film maestro continues to make his case for the directorial job on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Hellboy 2 director Guillermo del Toro early this week told SHAWN ADLER at MTVMoviesBlog that he still wants to helm the film version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment in J.K. Rowling's fantasy franchise.
"I’m definitely interested," del Toro reaffirmed, "now that the movies have grown darker. They have a contrast between the gloomy existence of the kid and the world he’s exposed to. They have evolved into a really nice universe."
It certainly is a universe in which the creator of the gruesome adult fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth would feel at home--a universe that, in the seventh book, came to include deathsticks, resurrection stones and visits to the afterlife, not to mention a world-changing final duel. (Okay, I mentioned it.)
CanMag's RYAN PARSONS agrees. "Having loved the darkness of Pan's Labyrinth, I can't help but dig the idea of Guillermo coming aboard."
But, del Toro's cinematic body of work notwithstanding, it wasn't just the dark elements of Deathly Hallows which he enjoyed. "I read it and I was very moved by the ending. It ends very much like a Dickens novel."
Del Toro had campaigned for the director's seat on the third installment, The Prisoner of Azkaban. The gig ultimately went to good friend and countryman Alfonso Cuaron, who turned it into the most popular and critically-acclaimed flick in the saga.
Azkaban was the only "good movie in the entire series," wrote Cinema Blend's JOSH TYLER, "and once it was over the franchise did an about face and went right back to being blithely and intentionally mediocre. I’ve already forgotten that the last Harry Potter movie existed."
But the director of the bloody vampire films Cronos and Blade 2 is confident that he can make Deathly Hallows memorable. Del Toro informed MTV Budapest in October that he wants "to be the one who kills twenty guys."
"He gets my vote," SlashFilm's HUNTER STEPHENSON wrote. "Not only does the material play to del Toro’s strong suits, but he seems to have a genuine passion and festering vision for it."
"I just hope that Warner Bros. take heed...and seriously consider it," stated LUCY at Product-Reviews.net. "Harry Potter has the depth and darkness that Del Toro thrives on so with this director at the helm, the last Harry Potter film could be the best!"
Even Tyler agrees that giving the film to del Toro "would definitely be a way to go out with a bang. Maybe they’d even get back some of the warm, mainstream critical reception the third movie got."
"It would be fantastic for del Toro to send the franchise off with an installment that was pure, sweeping cinema," posted Stephenson, to whom the Potter film series has thus far felt like a well-honed product. "But in the minds of studio execs, might it contrast too much with the prior films?"
[Thanks to ContactMusic.com for additional info.]