“They can’t. I won’t allow it!”: Guillermo del Toro’s Brutally Honest Response to His Life’s Greatest Movie Getting a Remake With Another Director

In 2006, Guillermo del Toro broke the barriers of fantasy and imagination with his Academy Award-winning movie, Pan’s Labyrinth. Even after nearly 20 years, not only does it stand as a modern-day dark fairy tale classic but also doubles as a debate of trauma escapism and the ambiguity of “monsters.”

Pan’s Labyrinth [Credit: Warner Bros.]

The film, which is at its core a deeply unsettling story, has become one of the most celebrated works in the genre of mysticism and fantasy. Pan’s Labyrinth represents more than the horrors residing within one’s mind, giving birth to an incredulous and spell-binding fable. Understandably, Guillermo del Toro has a bone to pick with any director who would dare to remake his greatest creation.

Guillermo del Toro and his fascination with monsters

Doug Jones as Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth [Credit: Warner Bros.]

Whenever asked about his fascination with horror and the supernatural, Guillermo del Toro claims that his love for the classical movie monsters lies beyond the superficial: “Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I’ve been saved and absolved by them because monsters are the patron saints of our blissful imperfections.” [via The Hollywood Reporter]

Harboring such a deep fascination for the things people otherwise consider terrorizing and horrific explains how the Mexican filmmaker could come up with something as deeply unsettling and majorly twisted as Pan’s Labyrinth. In it, a young girl, Ofelia, is destined to become princess of the Underworld but a perilous journey lies ahead of her before she can claim her rightful place as royalty.

While Ofelia makes her way through the labyrinthian realm of horror, the reality and fantasy of her mind begin blending into one. As cited by the critics’ consensus in Rotten Tomatoes, the dark tale presents itself as Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups in a storyline that is “bewitchingly bonkers.”

However, del Toro goes one step further and reinvents Pan’s Labyrinth as a critique of the Spanish Civil War. The film’s gothic grotesquerie represents the dark era that colored Spain’s past and Ofelia overcomes unspeakable horror in her mind’s labyrinthian plot, thus representing the dawn of a new Spain. [via Financial Times]

Guillermo del Toro feels possessive of Pan’s Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth [Credit: Warner Bros.]

Pan’s Labyrinth, whose original Spanish title translates to The Labyrinth of the Faun, is one of Guillermo del Toro’s best works with a blend of every mystical element invented to date – historical realism, magical realism, folklore, gothicism, horror, feyness, and fantasy. The film is one of its kind, obviously unsuited to be remade or revisited through the lens of another director at another time.

Pan’s Labyrinth is inherently del Toro’s invention and it is only through his storytelling, ideology, passion, and heritage that the film blooms into its fullest potential. Understandably, he would have trouble allowing someone else to borrow his creation, dissect it under a foreign microscope, and reshape it into an alien concept.

In an interview with The Talks, Guillermo del Toro did not hesitate to speak the absolute truth: “Oh, if someone tries to make a remake of Pan’s Labyrinth, they can’t. I won’t allow it!” But with his refusal to give up his proprietary hold over the film, del Toro also acknowledged the advantage of working in the medium of art and expression, where one story can be retold countless times through infinite adaptations.

Just like Hellboy which was created by Mike Mignola and adapted twice by del Toro, he knows that ultimately, his creation is open to reinterpretation and adaptations the moment it is released out into the world. In his own words: “You have to let those things go.”

Pan’s Labyrinth is available to buy/rent on Prime Video and Apple TV.