It’s looking likeGuillermo del Torois moving from his second go at people in big machines to people inside of small machines inside of people. WithPacific Rim 2less and less likely to get secure backing and produced within this decade, del Toro is apparently in early talks to take the reigns of the long-gestatingFantastic Voyageremake, which has a script and treatment fromDavid S. Goyer, del Toro’s collaborator on the excellentBlade 2. The remake would finally team del Toro with fellow visionaryJames Cameron, who has been set as a producer on this project for some time now and was a would-be backer for del Toro’s passion project, an adaptation ofH.P. Lovecraft’s hauntingAt the Mountains of Madness.
Fantastic Voyagehas been kicking around for awhile as a remake-ready property, and del Toro is exactly the kind of stylish filmmaker that could not only give the effects a good redesign but also improve on the vaguely entertaining original. The 1966 original, which sent a team of scientist inside the body of a sickened VIP via a microscopic spaceship, is more of a technical marvel than a genuinely gripping science fiction tale, with the sole exception ofDonald Pleasance’s exceptionally nefarious performance. del Toro might very well develop the tensions inside the small spacecraft to a far more substantial state, and his unparalleled sense of scale could make the shots from inside the body truly astonishing. At the very least, it should be as fun and giddy asJoe Dante’s underratedInnerspace, which had its own celebrity producer inSteven Spielberg.
Mind you, several directors have been attached toFantastic Voyageover the years, fromShawn LevytoPaul GreengrasstoLouis Leterrier, and del Toro hasn’t confirmed anything as of yet. That being said, with the sequel to del Toro’s similarly underrated robot vs. monsters blast on a very serious hold,Fantastic Voyagewould make for a strong candidate for del Toro to follow-up his bloody, gorgeousCrimson Peak, and another chance for del Toro to helm a major league science fiction property.
