Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities is making quite a splash as the director's new project, now streaming on Netflix, has debuted to positive reviews. The show's success shouldn't come as a surprise, as the Oscar winning director of Nightmare Alley, The Shape of Water, Pan's Labyrinth, and Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro has been riding a high for the better part of a two decades now. With everything he's done within the horror and animation genres, you might expect him to be resting on his laurels and enjoying the fruits of his years of labor. But the native of Guadalajara, Mexico is more active now than he's ever been. Cabinet of Curiosities is merely the latest illustration of how his penchant for supporting fellow filmmakers and giving back to the medium is unparalleled. And he's doing it from a variety of angles.
Propping Up Other Horror Directors
As the curator of Cabinet of Curiosities, he hand-picked eight of the brightest, most cutting edge directors in horror to direct each episode of the anthology, Some of these directors, like Ana Lily Amanpour, who helmed Episode 4 entitled "The Outside," are rising stars in the horror genre, with films like A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night and The Bad Batch to her name. Others, like long time friend and collaborator, Guillermo Navarro, who directed the very first episode, "Lot 36," are friends that he wants to support by offering very visible, high profile new stories. He also trusted Navarro to tell the story accurately because the events in that episode actually happened to del Toro in real life. "There was a little bit of that insight in this story and so there was a chance to communicate. He called me and then I jumped on it," explained Navarro. Del Toro trusted his "old compadre" with the story of how he lost all of his belongings in a storage unit because he would "understand the story behind the horror."
Del Toro Is An Avid Supporter Of Future Mexican Film
But to truly understand just how dedicated del Toro is to being a steward of the horror genre and its future, you have to go back to his hometown of Guadalajara, where in association with the Guadalajara Film Festival, the Jenkins-del Toro Scholarship was put together. Established in 2018, the scholarship is granted annually in the amount of $60,000 to the best young, aspiring Mexican director. The money gives fresh, young talent the ability to travel abroad and not only study at some of the world's finest film institutes, but also gain invaluable life experiences that can enhance their ability to tell compelling stories. The money allows its winners to do and see things they would likely never have the opportunity to do on their own, and del Toro is dutifully there every year to sit on the jury to take part in selecting its winner.
It's not just the promising young Mexican director's he is helping to prop up. In 2013, when a relatively inexperienced horror director by the name of Andy Muschietti was calling the shots on the film, Mama, del Toro not only served as the executive producer on the film, but went a step further making it a point to guide Muschietti and to lend and ear or offer consultation to the then thirty-six-year-old Argentine director noting, "I planned it so I could be with Andy and Barbara (Muschietti, Andy's sister and producing partner) through the pre-production and through the first few weeks of shooting." He did so while being knee-deep in his own project, Pacific Rim, which debuted the same year. Nine years later, the talented Muschietti has directed It, It: Chapter 2, and The Flash. The Muschiettis joked about having del Toro appear as a janitor in the It sequel, but due to scheduling conflicts, it never happened. To this day, Muschietti can call on the modern legend of horror for a tip or advice should the need arise.
Extending His Already Considerable Reach into Animation
Del Toro is also a creative consultant for animation at Dreamworks Studios. But with his latest film, a stop-motion animated adaptation of Pinocchio, slated to be released worldwide on Friday, November 25 and available to stream on Netflix on the 9th of December, he returned to his native Guadalajara once again for the film's production at his own International Animation Studio. Although it will feature the voices of big names like Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, and Cate Blanchett and debuted to a standing ovation at the Animation is Film Festival last month, del Toro actively sought out creative young minds to work with him on his passion project. Included in that group is Sergio Valdivia de la Torre, who appreciates what Del Toro has done to streamline communication in an effort to elevate the medium of animation saying, “It’s something that didn’t exist among the creators that we already knew. Almost always, they worked alone and at least now there’s a space like this one where what we can do is join forces, learn from everyone, have projects and collective experiences. And that puts us on the next level, for the stop action movie making experience to be more enriching."
Having contributed to more than 100 films in varying capacities, Hollywood is very aware of del Toro's indefatigable mission to promote every unique aspect of the horror and animation world. He has been thanked in the credits of other people's productions an unbelievable eighty-six times. Splice (2010) director Vincenzo Natali, who helmed an episode of Cabinet of Curiosities entitled "Graveyard Rats," is a longtime friend of del Toro's and sums up his effusive effort to support his colleagues perfectly, saying, "He's such a generous, lovely impresario of the fantastic arts, and I will never forget when, the very first time I met him, he gave me this big bear hug and said 'I love your movie!" So the next time you're watching a great horror piece or an innovative new animation piece, look closely as the credits begin to roll, because there's a good chance Guillermo del Toro's name will appear somewhere.