‘Nightmare Alley’ Director Guillermo del Toro on Overcoming Obstacles to Make His Darkest Film Yet

On paper, there isn’t a whole lot that would seemingly connect Guillermo del Toro’s newest film, “Nightmare Alley,” with his upcoming animated feature, “Pinocchio.” And when del Toro was asked about that by Rotten Tomatoes, the filmmaker is quick to point out the obvious connections with their carnival settings, but he is also able to explain just how “Pinocchio” differs.

Guillermo del Toro has been directing movies since 1986 with his first short film Doña Lupe. Many were familiar with his horror films in the 1990s but it wasn’t until 2006 Pan’s Labyrinth that made him a household name. 

director Guillermo del Toro says video game development isn’t his thing anymore. 

Since his 1993 debut “Cronos,” it’s always been explicit that Guillermo del Toro is a genre filmmaker at heart. Over the years, the director has tackled several different kinds of horror films.

“Nightmare Alley” is an adaptation of the William Lindsey Gresham novel of the same name, and finds del Toro working without supernatural elements for the first time in his career. Production initially began in January 2020, but COVID shut down filming in March.

latest film — about a small-time carnival worker (Bradley Cooper) who grifts his way into high society by claiming to read minds and commune with the dead — has all the trappings of the genre: drunk degenerates and femme fatales; dimly lit streets and stalking shadows; greed, lust, murder, hubris and a creeping existential dread.

After the release of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Leonardo DiCaprio was reportedly offered quite a few films. Obviously.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaGuillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” exists in a kind of moral murk as its central character goes on a journey that will earn him wealth and influence but will also plunge him into a dark crisis of the soul.Now, the film will get a re-release with a color palette that more completely reflects that ambiguity. Searchlight Pictures announced Friday that it will oversee a special limited run of del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” in black and white.

Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” is already getting a rerelease in a special new format. Los Angeles audiences will get the chance to see Del Toro’s ’40s noir film in black & white.Searchlight Pictures will host a limited run engagement for “Nightmare Alley: Vision and Darkness and Light,” which will be a black & white print of the film screened on 35mm film stock.

Guillermo Del Toro is not as prolific as some of his peers when it comes to feature films, but it’s still somewhat surprising it’s taken this long for him to work with Cate Blanchett. They both had their breakthrough moments in the mid-to-late-1990s and Blanchett could have easily stepped into the worlds of any “Hellboy” movie, “The Shape of Water,” or “Crimson Peak” without a second glance.

The Shape of Water,” he won the Best Picture Oscar.His latest, “Nightmare Alley,” probably won’t, but it is nonetheless a far more entertaining and satisfying film than its overrated science-fiction predecessor. The sinister carnival sideshow look is alluring, a perfect match for subversive del Toro.

A title like “ Nightmare Alley,” especially when paired with a filmmaker like Guillermo del Toro, suggests a certain kind of movie. Del Toro, the director of “The Shape of Water” and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” has a signature style after all.But “Nightmare Alley” is not about a haunted house or the supernatural.

“Nightmare Alley,” and he originally planned to team up with another known cinephile: Leonardo DiCaprio. The Oscar-winning “The Revenant” actor was originally attached to star in “Nightmare Alley” for del Toro, but was eventually replaced with Bradley Cooper in the role of Stanton Carlisle.While speaking with TheWrap about the journey of getting “Nightmare Alley” to the screen, del Toro explained exactly why DiCaprio’s casting didn’t happen.

Jane Campion would like to apologize. “I didn’t get back to you that weekend because I got sick,” she says.

The National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle have had their say. Now, the American Film Institute’s jury of industry professionals and media members (who decides this group is always quizzical) has made their top 10 selections for 2021 for both film and television.

As he sits in a zoom interview suite a continent away, enduring one interview after another, Willem Dafoe is beaming. And, frankly, who can blame him? Over the past year, he’s worked with Guillermo del Toro (“Nightmare Alley”), reunited with Robert Eggers (“The Northman“), and collaborated with Yorgos Lanthimos for the first time (“Poor Things”).

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentMexican director Joaquin del Paso’s coming-of-age drama “The Hole in the Fence,” set in an all-male religious camp in rural Mexico, scored the Cairo Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Pyramid, on Sunday capping a vibrant 43rd edition of the preeminent Arab event, which was held in person despite the impending threat of the coronavirus Omicron variant.Though there were some last minute cancellations, most international attendees made the trek to Cairo

“If you displease the right people, the world closes in on you very, very fast,” Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) cautions her new partner in crime, mentalist Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper).

The end is here. No, we’re not at the end of Oscar season, but we are effectively at the finish line for Oscar contenders to reveal themselves.

Liza Foreman Rome-based 102 Distribution is bringing onto the market the Mexico-Italo co-production “500 Millions of Red Shoes,” directed by first time director Carlos Eichelmann Kaiser and co-produced by Mexico’s BHD Film. Gabriela Maldonado and Alexandro de Icaza are producing for BHD.“500 Million” was financed by Mexico’s Imcine film agency with the Eficine tax incentive instrument established in 2006 by article 189 of the income tax law.