Guillermo del Toro is 'very clear' with what he wants with studios

7 August 2019

Guillermo del Toro is "very clear" with studios about what he wants while making a film.

Guillermo del Toro

The acclaimed director is currently working on an adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham's classic noir novel 'Nightmare Alley' for Fox Searchlight and will then move on to his re-imagining of Carlo Collodi's 1883 children's novel 'The Adventures of Pinocchio' for Netflix.

The 'Shape of Water' director confessed that he executes his craft in" exactly in the same way" for both studios and works in his own specific style as by this point in his career, his reputation as a filmmaker speaks for itself.

In an interview with Variety, he said: "I execute my craft exactly in the same way through both [Netflix and Fox Searchlight] And the thing I have with both is a very clear relationship: they know what I do.

"At this point, I've been directing and producing for more than a quarter of a century, so you become like a certain type of tree.

"If you come to an orange tree, you're not going to get an apple. I'm very clear with what I want."

Guillermo also recently produced the big-screen adaptation of Alvin Schwartz's collection of short horror stories 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' and the film's director André Øvredal praised the filmmaker for being a "master at focusing" when it came to cutting down the film.

He said:"Obviously he worked on this script to direct it himself, so he comes into it with a vision of his own.

"But the wonderful part was that the moment they hired me to direct, the first thing he told me was, 'Now this is your film. Do not make a Guillermo del Toro movie, make your movie.'

"He was a master at focusing a movie in the editing, I did my director's cut and I showed it to him, and he said, 'That's great, now let's sit down and I'll show you how to cut 20 minutes off.'

"And he did! He sat down with the editor and myself for two days and I just let him snip off stuff. He took out a couple scenes that I was actually in love with, but when I saw it at the end, every choice was correct."