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Guillermo del Toro will be having a big week at this year’s Comic-Con. The fanboy favorite filmmaker will be on hand to show off his animated feature The Book of Life at Friday’s Fox panel, then be onstage for his unveiling of Crimson Peak at the Legendary Pictures panel on Saturday and finally goose audiences with Sunday’s presentation of his vampire TV show, FX’s The Strain.
But del Toro will also have a big presence on the convention floor at Legendary’s intricate and interactive booth. Sure, there’s some footage of As Above, So Below and the title treatment of the studio’s upcoming adaptation of Warcraft, but the booth belongs to del Toro, who was on hand Wednesday, known as Preview Night to Con-goers, to offer a personal tour.
First, there is a Crimson Peak Gothic Hallway, which will give attendees a look into the world of his upcoming gothic romancer, which stars Charlie Hunnam and Jessica Chastain.
Del Toro designed and was instrumental in the making of the hallway, which he says is partly modeled on Bleak House, his house that is entirely devoted to his fanboy fetishes, collections and curiosities that he has amassed over his life. (Yes, most of us have man caves. He has a man house.)
And he oversaw every detail, from the cobwebs to the size of the screens that give the illusion the hallway is bigger than it is, to the artifacts, props and costumes from the movie laid out in a way that they tell, or at least hint at, the story of the movie.
Then sucking you from dark and moody to mechanized action is Pacific Rim: Jaeger Pilot, a simulation that uses Oculus VR technology to put you in a pilot seat of a mechanical giant from del Toro’s popular monster vs. mechas movie, Pacific Rim. (Legendary recently dated a sequel for April 7, 2017.)
Legendary worked with Industrial Light & Magic starting in March on the virtual reality experience, with del Toro giving his input and having his key Pac Rim crew offer expertise along the way.
And when you do it, del Toro advises to keep looking to the sides and to your back, because not only is that where the action is, it’ll make the experience all the better.
“It really is a peak into my brain,” del Toro says of the two experiences. “And one is left brain, the other right brain.”
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