FX Developing TV Series Based on Del Toro's 'The Strain'



The FX basic cable network is developing a new TV series based on Guillermo Del Toro’s The Strain. Del Toro published The Strain, the first in a trilogy of novels in 2009 followed by The Fall in 2010 with the saga concluding in The Night Eternal in 2011. Dark Horse Comics is currently in the process of adapting Del Toro’s narrative into a comic book series by writer David Lapham and artist Mike Huddleston, which has reached eight issues, and which would certainly stand to benefit if The Strain TV series gets the green light and is picked up by the network.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Strain creators Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan are close to a deal with Lost producer Carleton Cuse to develop The Strain as a TV series for FX.

In The Strain, Del Toro and Hogan came up with an interesting and very different way of looking at vampirism. The protagonist of the novels is a doctor who is investigating a vampire plague that is striking New York City. The books treat vampirism as a parasitic disease and strip out all the layers of romanticism that have gradually clogged the arteries of modern vampire sagas. Though it does have enough grisly elements to please modern horror movie fans, The Strain is as much a “medical thriller” as a traditional vampire story. It should be interesting to see this rather novel take on the vampire genre will make it on TV where more conventional approaches to vampirism (True Blood) have found success.

Del Toro & Perlman On Board for "Hellboy 3"



Comic-Con News: It has been over four years since the second Hellboy movie, and given the relatively mediocre box office success of the franchise there hasn’t been a lot of interest in a third film featuring the demonic do-gooder. In fact until Comic-Con, it wasn’t even clear that director Guillermo Del Toro, who appears to be in demand constantly for a variety of projects, or star Ron Perlman, who had complained about going through the elaborate makeup process, were even interested in a third Hellboy movie that would tie up the loose ends from the first two films.

But at Comic-Con promoting his Pacific Rim robots vs. monsters movie, Del Toro didn’t hesitate to talk about a third Hellboy film, stating flatly: "I can say publicly now that we (Del Toro and Perlman) are together in wanting to do Hellboy 3."


Perlman, who had recently donned the Hellboy makeup to fulfill the wishes of an ailing young fan, who had requested a meeting with Hellboy, was definitely on-board, telling Entertainment Weekly: "The first two movies were set up to have this incredible resolve. Everything that was done in both movies was leading up to this destiny, written in stone, of what Hellboy has been summoned to Earth to do. To not do it, particularly in light of the scope that Guillermo is thinking of for the resolve, would be to my mind a little bit of a shame."

Of course with no studio on board yet, a Hellboy 3 movie is still far from the big screen. Hellboy II: The Golden Army almost broke even theatrically, earning $160.4 million worldwide vs. a cost of $85 million. That might be close enough to convince a studio that wants to get in on the comic book movie parade to gamble that with Hellboy, the third time will indeed be the charm. If comic book movies continue to perform well at the box office, Hellboy 3’s chances should definitely improve.



Del Toro to Helm "Beauty & the Beast" Movie

Guillermo del Toro is now attached to direct a feature film adaptation of Beauty and the Beast written by Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones Diary) starring Emma Watson (Harry Potter). The movie is set up at Warner Bros., and it should be noted that there are already two competing Beauty and the Beast TV series based on the public domain fairy tale property currently in development.

Of course the fact that Del Toro is currently attached to the project doesn’t mean that it will be made or if it is that he will end up directing it. The list of projects that the protean director has been involved with is lengthy and includes high profile films like The Hobbit.

As The Hollywood Reporter points out, Del Toro is currently spread pretty thin. He is currently filming Pacific Rim, and is attached to direct a Trollhunters animated movie for Dreamworks, a Haunted Mansion movie for Disney plus Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Universal.

Del toro to Co-write Vampire Trilogy

Del Toro to Co-write Vampire Trilogy With Chuck Hogan

Guillermo del Toro, who’s directed the last two Hellboy films and is about to begin work on two Hobbit films, will co-write a trilogy of vampire novels with crime author Chuck Hogan. The first, The Strain, will be released next summer from HarperCollins imprint William Morrow. The three books will reveal progressively more information about an ancient vampiric race that originated in Old Testament times.

Del Toro Helming Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro is now booked with films through 2017, including remakes of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Slaughterhouse-Five, Variety reported.

Universal Pictures--which has a three-year first-look deal with the director--and del Toro are making a long-term commitment by setting up four directing projects, including the aforementioned movies.

The fourth project is an adaptation of Drood, a Dan Simmons novel that will be published in February by Little, Brown.

Del Toro's first priority is New Line and MGM's The Hobbit and its sequel, to which he has committed the next five years. He has begun writing Hobbit with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, collaborating via video conferencing and trips to New Zealand every three weeks.

While it's difficult to plan projects five years into the future, at this point Universal executives told the trade paper that Drood, based on the life of Charles Dickens, is the most likely to be del Toro’s first post-Hobbit directing vehicle.

Universal also still has its sights set on del Toro's pet project, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.

Also on the horizon: David Moody's apocalyptic novel Hater, which del Toro will produce with Mark Johnson but not direct, and Crimson Peak, a gothic romance spec script by del Toro and his Mimic collaborator Matthew Robbins, which del Toro will produce but not direct. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)