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Guillermo Del Toro's Next Movie Is About a Fish Man
One of the most anticipated movies of the year, despite there being so little known about it, is Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water. The filmmaker behind Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak and the Hellboy series is that much of a draw for fans. But now we do have some information on his next feature, and it’s got us even more excited.
Doug Jones, who has been a del Toro staple for decades (he plays the Pale Man and the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth and Abe Sapien in Hellboy and its sequel — pictured above), provided Collider with details on his role in The Shape of Water and the movie’s premise. Turns out, he’s playing another aquatic character, like Abe.
It’s a 1963 drama—it’s not a sci-fi [film], it’s not a genre film, but I am a creature in it. I’m a fish man that’s kind of a one-off. I’m an enigma, nobody knows where I came from; I’m the last of my species so I’m like a natural anomaly. And I’m being studied and tested in a U.S. government facility in 1963, so the Russian Cold War is on, the race for space is on, so there’s all that backdrop and that undercurrent. I’m being tested for how can they use me for advantages in military or space travel, or my technology—can we make this usable for humans? So they’re trying to keep me a secret from the Russians.
That description makes it sound like del Toro is beating both Aquaman and the gender-swapped Splash to some of their punches, albeit with a very different sort of movie. We’ve known for a while about the time period and Cold War backdrop, so there’s been some expectation for a serious yet fantastical film set during a war, a la Pan’s Labyrinth. Jones even hints that this could be the filmmaker’s return to the Oscars. But it also now sounds like a cross between that and Hellboy.
Jones goes on to say that his fish man character is found by a cleaning lady played by Sally Hawkins, and there’s a love story between them. No word on the roles of the rest of the cast, however, which includes Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins. The Shape of Water is presumed to be coming out in late 2017.
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