Guillermo Del Toro has about 8,957 movies in development at the moment and one of them is JEKYLL AND HYDE, based on the classic 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson novel. While he’s surely not going to get to it anytime soon (you have to assume making THE HOBBIT will eat up at least 3-4 years of his time), it’s interesting to read what his ideas are on the project.
The man talked with MTV the other day and of course had an intelligent take on the material: “If you tell the story fully, you can not only see it as a story of repression, of the build-up of repression until it manifests itself like a monster,” Del Toro explained. “I think that Hyde — yes, he’s a creature of subterranean desire and all that — but it’s more than that. He’s an addiction.”
“In every story of addiction, people seem to [underestimate] what the addiction does to the person,” Del Toro continued. “And what does Hyde give Jekyll that is so powerful? That can be explored.”
Furthermore, Del Toro implies he’s going to be exploring the time period for years to come: “My interest is to do a series of Victorian horror movies, because it’s part of the heritage that was getting lost. The more the merrier,” Del Toro said, also referencing his “Frankenstein” project. “That is ripe for a new exploration of the social, psycho-sexual stuff that makes the horror tick in that period.”
You gotta love the psycho-sexual stuff!
Del Toro’s HELLBOY starlet Selma Blair has got back!