Interval pacific rim (his most commercially successful film worldwide) The Shape of Water (Oscar-winning blockbuster) Director Guillermo del Toro Crimson PeakFilled with visually stunning imagery and themes that resonate with the Gothic-loving director, the film was poorly received by audiences and critics, but a new interview looking back at the past reveals why the 2015 film was initially misunderstood.
In an interview with Vulture, del Toro explained that it had to do with marketing: audiences thought they were watching a full-blown horror movie, not a fraught period romance with supernatural elements. “What I was trying to do with this movie was Crimson Peak What I’ve tried to do in a lot of my films is to make action films that function as anti-action films, or Crimson Peak“Gothic romance tempered with romance,” he said. Later in the interview, he delves even deeper into that point: “I wanted to produce a lavish, beautiful operatic spectacle, with sets and melodrama and beautiful lighting. I wanted it to be a kind of feast.”
Unfortunately, as the director recalls: Crimson Peak‘s unique sensibility was a tough sell. “What’s always haunted the movie is that it was marketed as a horror movie,” he told Vulture, recalling that he knew at the time that it was a strategy that would “fail.” “I was like, ‘We should market it as romance and mystery. We definitely don’t want to market it as horror.’ It’s coming out in October, and October is Halloween month, so I understand why that happened.”
But he Crimson Peak Since then, the film has continued to find an audience: “It’s connected, almost on a molecular level, to the people who love it,” he says. And, naturally, that includes del Toro, who calls it “one of the films I love most and hold dear to my heart.”
Guillermo del Toro’s next film is the highly anticipated Frankenstein For Netflix.
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