Greetings from the newly-opened Budapest branch office of the MTV Movies team, where you can't find the World Series on TV, but you can watch a game show hosted by a woman with no shirt on.
Last night, I visited the set of "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," and caught up with affable auteur Guillermo Del Toro. For years, rumors have circulated that the "Pan's Labyrinth" maestro has been turning down Harry Potter movies so he can continue his "Hellboy" series. While Del Toro confirmed that he has indeed given the Heisman to the boy wizard in the past, he added that he might still make a Potter movie if Warner Brothers will let him do it on his own terms.
"I'm up to be the one who kills twenty guys," laughed Del Toro, saying that he'd want to step in for "The Deathly Hallows."
"They came to me once, for the third one," he remembered of "The Prisoner of Azkaban." "I've read them all, and when I read the books before the movies were done, I always pictured Charles Dickens - they were very Dickens-ian. The situation of Harry Potter reminded me a lot of Pip from 'Great Expectations.' I saw them as deeper, more creaky, more corroded; then [the stories] were textured very differently when the first two movies came out. They were so bright and happy and full of light, that I wasn't interested."
After seeing the last few films, however, the director famed for a shadowy imagination and morally ambiguous characters has begun to reconsider. "They seem to be getting eerie and darker ... If they come back to me, I'll think about it."
Could you imagine "Hallows" being filtered through the mind of Guillermo Del Toro? Some of the stuff on the "Hellboy II" set is like watching your creepiest nightmares brought to life – stay tuned for a full set visit in the near future! In the meantime, weigh in below with your thoughts on who should direct "Deathly Hallows."
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