Guillermo del Toro - Cabinet of Curiosities

I’ve admired Guillermo’s work since Cronos , and when we finally had an opportunity to sit down and talk, we started discussing the films we could make together. At that point he was going to direct The Hobbit , but we talked about At the Mountains of Madness and another film based on a British television series called The Champions. Really the whole conversation was about movies, cinema, stories, and comic books—all the things that we both love.

Then I went to Bleak House, which is just sensational. Guillermo surrounds himself with things that inspire him and provoke him and he’s interested in so many different aspects of cinema, literature, art, and storytelling. He’s one of the most fascinating people to sit down with, and his imagination is Absolutely extraordinary. When the conversation came back to At the Mountains of Madness , I said, “Great, I’m in.” I knew the story, and the concept artwork he had created for the movie was stunning and unique.

While this project that we were both so passionate about didn’t work out the first time round, I know that it’s going to happen one day—why? Because Guillermo will never stop creating, or caring, no matter what. He will keep at it against all odds. And when it finally happens, it will be infused with all the things that make a Guillermo del Toro movie so distinct and unforgettable: images, emotions, vistas, and characters no one else creates.

Guillermo will permeate every frame of the movie in the same way that he can be found in every room of Bleak House, in every illustration of his journals, and on every page of this book. It’s a beautiful thing to witness, and I look forward to being a part of his exceptionally imaginative world.

This book represents only a fraction of the notes in my diaries and the items in my collection at Bleak House, but it offers a great start to a dialogue with those who appreciate the work that I do. We took hours of interview tapes and spent many days archiving, photographing, editing, and designing the pages you now have in your hands. It is only proper that we thank some of the people that made this book possible.

To start, thank you to all the friends and creative confidants who contributed pieces to this book: James Cameron, Tom Cruise, Alfonso Cuarón, Cornelia Funke, Neil Gaiman, John Landis, Mike Mignola, Ron Perlman, and Adam Savage.

Without the collaboration of these artists, my films and this book would not be nearly as rich: Mike Mignola, Wayne Barlowe, Oscar Chichoni, Guy Davis, TyRuben Ellingson, Carlos Giménez, Carlos Jimenez, Rob McCallum, Raúl Monge, Sergio Sandoval, Keith Thompson, Francisco Ruiz Velasco, Raúl Villares, Tanja Wahlbeck, Simeon Wilkins, and Doug Williams. The presence of their work here, of course, does not supersede the rich partnerships I’ve forged with many other artists, whom I value equally as much.

At Insight Editions, I am indebted to publisher Raoul Goff, without whom this book would still be an idea. And thank you to Marc Scott Zicree, with whom I share many affinities. Behind the scenes, editor Jake Gerli and the rest of the book team—art director Chrissy Kwasnik, designer Jon Glick, translator Mike Engle, and editorial staff Chris Prince, Rachel Anderson, and Elaine Ou—did a wonderful job molding my predilections into this fine presentation.

Thank you, too, to my representatives Richard Abate, George Hayum, and Gary Ungar, for standing by me and guiding me through this book development process.

Without these kindred spirits in the world of filmmaking, there would be much less of a story to tell about the notebooks and my films: Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar, Belén Atienza, Álvaro Augustín, Arthur H. Gorson, Elena Manrique, Bertha Navarro, Bernard Nussbaumer, Alejandro Springall, Telecinco, Paolo Vasile, and Jorge Vergara.

Cover design by Jon Glick

Guillermo del Toro: Cabinet of Curiosities

My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions

Copyright © 2013 Guillermo del Toro.

“Ode to a Master” copyright © 2013 James Cameron.

“Casa del Toro” copyright © 2013 John Landis.

“Guillermo and Me” copyright © 2013 Alfonso Cuarón.

“Resurrection” copyright © 2013 Ron Perlman.

“The Collecting Instinct” copyright © 2013 Adam Savage.

“Notebook Thoughts from Abroad” copyright © 2013 Neil Gaiman.

“The Magician” copyright © 2013 Cornelia Funke.

“My Days with del Toro” copyright © 2013 Mike Mignola.

“At the Mountains of Magnificence” © 2013 Tom Cruise.

“Guillermo’s Mainstays of Horror” adapted from the Foreword by Guillermo del Toro to The White People and Other Weird Stories by Arthur Machen (Penguin Classics), copyright © Guillermo del Toro, 2011; and the Penguin Horror series editor introduction by Guillermo del Toro, “Haunted Castles, Dark Mirrors: On the Penguin Horror Series” (Penguin Books), copyright © Necropia, Inc., 2013.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities © Guillermo Del Toro 2014. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First published in 2013 by:

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ISBN 978-0-06-208284-8

EPub Edition January 2014 ISBN 9780062335937

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013940369

Cronos © Producciones Iguana, S.A. and October Films Inc and Universal Studios

Mimic © Dimension Films

The Devil’s Backbone © El Deseo S.A.

Blade II ™ © New Line Productions, Inc. (sl3)

Hellboy © Revolution Studios Distribution Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved.