Guillermo del Toro is a filmmaker who sees films from more than just through the lens of his camera, understanding the beauty of the art he is creating. He has created masterpieces like The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, Cabinet of Curiosities, Nightmare Alley, and Crimson Peak, which have helped him establish himself as one of the most talented filmmakers of all time. He has been awarded a lot of accolades due to this, including winning a number of Academy Awards in categories like Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Animated Feature.
One would expect someone so talented and respected to easily be able to do any project they wanted. This, however, was not the case for del Toro, whose biggest career regret is not being able to make a film for the universally loved, Star Wars franchise.
Guillermo del Toro Wanted To Make A Star Wars Film
Star Wars is one of the most beloved franchises of all time, with a huge number of projects within it. Over the course of its extremely long run, there have been many respectable directors who have worked on these projects. The number, however, is even more greater when it comes to directors who almost made a film with the franchise, with names like David S. Goyer and Quentin Tarantino having almost done so. Another name that can be added to this seemingly ever-growing list is Guillermo del Toro.
Though he was approached to direct Star Wars: Episode VII, which fell through due to scheduling issues, the director first voiced his desire to direct a film for the franchise in 2015 during a Comic-Con. Here, he mentioned that he would love to create a film centered around the character of Jabba the Hutt. He would want this film to be like Al Pacino’s Godfather and would explore the underworld of the Star Wars universe. His reason for picking this character in particular was the fact that he saw a resemblance between him and Jabba the Hutt.
Guillermo del Toro Was Not Able To Make A Star Wars Film
Though at the time that he mentioned this first, he did explain that him talking about this wasn’t sowing seeds of any kind and he was simply a fan geeking out about a franchise that he loves, the director actually almost did end up making a film of the sort. Unfortunately, this did not last very long, and during a recent interview with Collider, Guillermo del Toro voiced his disappointment with this fact. He explained that despite trying to be positive about this, he cannot help but feel upset and bitter.
“We were doing a lot of stuff, and then it’s not my property, it’s not my money, and then it’s one of those 30 screenplays that goes away. Sometimes I’m bitter, sometimes I’m not. I always turn to my team and say, ‘Good practice, guys. Good practice. We designed a great world. We designed great stuff. We learned.’ You can never be ungrateful with life. Whatever life sends you, there’s something to be learned from it. So, you know, I trust the universe, I do. When something doesn’t happen, I go, ‘Why?’ I try to have a dialogue with myself. ‘Why didn’t it happen?’ And the more you swim upstream with the universe, the less you’re gonna realize where you’re going.”
He talked about how he had to put up a strong front for his co-workers and team, telling them that they could use this experience as a learning curve and not to get too upset about this. He, however, was feeling quite the opposite, constantly asking questions about why things happened the way that they did.
