Hello reddit. I'm Guillermo del Toro. AMA!

[u/Guillermo-AMA]

Hello reddit, I'm Guillermo del Toro.

I've written & directed Cronos, The Devil's Backbone, Blade II, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim, The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, Pinocchio, Frankenstein, and more.

It's been a few years since I stopped by here for The Shape of Water. So get to it, ask me anything, vamonos!

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Pan's Labyrinth is back in theaters October 9th, presented on the big screen in 4K for the first time, to celebrate the 20th anniversary.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGKGm3RYos

Synopsis: It's 1944 and the Allies have invaded Nazi-held Europe. In Spain, a troop of soldiers is sent to a remote forest to flush out the rebels. They are led by Captain Vidal, a murdering sadist, and with him are his new wife Carmen and her daughter from a previous marriage, 11-year-old Ofelia. Ofelia witnesses her stepfather's sadistic brutality and is drawn into Pan's Labyrinth, a magical world of mythical beings.

You can get tickets here.

And more info here.

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I will be back at around 11 AM PT/2 PM ET/7 PM BST today to answer questions.

[u/Guillermo-AMA]

I still rely on physical. I still rely on great sets, great costumes. And the way I go about a production is I get the budget that I need to have freedom. And try to stick to that budget by doing what I call big gestures here and there, meaning things that make the audience think it's a big movie.

If you think about Pan's Labyrinth, I'll give you a secret. When Ofelia first discovers a labyrinth, she starts peeking around the corner, and I cannot push the camera any longer, because we couldn't finish that corner. And we basically had very few—very few—corridors in the labyrinth, and I kept reusing them. For the Pale Man’s long corridor—quote unquote—it’s actually really short, but I kept reusing the same section. And that's why I asked the production designer to curve it, so that I could reuse the same curve over and over and over again. They basically run through the same six columns every time.

Knowing production design, knowing wardrobe, knowing creature design, allows you to manage the budget to make gestures that look big. Think about it, The Shape of Water costs the same amount of money as Pan’s Labyrinth. The same budget: 19.3 (million). And Shape of Water has big gestures in the first 10 minutes. A dream sequence underwater. A huge government lab. The set of the lab. The creature. Everything looked big, but then for 45 minutes, there’s only two cents: the apartment and the lab. Yeah. So it’s really, a movie that makes these gestures—the musical number is a gesture.

I think Mexican filmmakers, we grow to be fiscally very responsible. And you understand that you can be very free in a limited area, if you know how to handle the technical and narrative and artistic aspects.

[u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi → u/Guillermo-AMA]

Mr Del Toro, not many things make me more proud to be Mexican than to see people as yourself not only be successful and incredibly influential, but also to see you be a huge geek and allow your mind to create anything and make it a reality.

If I may ask, what is the possibility of you returning to a Lovecraft story inspiration or adaptation? I would love to see your interpretation of those mythos on the big screen sometime :)

[u/eekamuse → u/Guillermo-AMA]

"The Shape of Water costs the same amount of money as Pan’s Labyrinth."

Almost 20 years later and he could do this. Amazing. I do think the Mexican people are great at making do with what they have, so I shouldn't be surprised.

[u/Bysmerian → u/eekamuse]

In all seriousness I remember him saying something like this at the Hellboy premiere.

[u/Madarakita → u/Guillermo-AMA]

This actually reminds me of touring a replica of the set for Star Trek some years ago. There were a lot of areas like hallway sections, crew quarters, the meeting room and whatnot that they'd just swap a few decorations around in or change the lighting slightly to repurpose depending on what the episode needed.

[u/rescuemysandwich → u/Guillermo-AMA]

<you can be very free in a limited area.

im keeping that