In An Alternate Timeline, Guillermo Del Toro Was Running The DARK UNIVERSE

Seems like every day we're bombarded with further, incontrovertible proof that we are living in the worst timeline imaginable: our best rock stars are dead, a megalomaniacal toddler-slash-former game show host is running the country, some of our favorite performers were recently revealed to be actual monsters, there's another half-assed DC movie in theaters, and there's no more Twin Peaks to watch.

"What a time to be alive"? Fuck you.

Anyway, here's the latest bit of evidence indicating that we're all living in the Bad Place: once upon a time, Guillermo Del Toro was offered the keys to the Universal Monsters kingdom, but he opted out of the gig. Several years later, the great Dark Universe experiment happened (and, thanks to the wildly ill-advised The Mummy, ended almost immediately).

The news arrives in the form of a new interview with TimesTalks. Del Toro says (as quoted by IndieWire):

“I’ve said no to things that are enormous and I’ve never looked back. The only time I repent I didn’t do something was in 2007 when Universal, in an incredibly gentle and beautiful manner said, ‘Do you want to take over the Monster Universe?’ And they gave me the reins of several properties, and I didn’t do it. That I repent. So this is a confessional moment, I repent. That’s the only thing.”

“Mistakes teach you a lot. I think you learn more from failure and mistakes than you do from success.”

Just imagine Del Toro's Frankenstein. His Wolf Man. I suppose we don't need to stretch too hard to imagine what his Creature From The Black Lagoon would've looked like, but all signs indicate that The Shape Of Water will more than scratch that itch for anyone who ever dreamed of Del Toro tackling that property.

Anyway, pour one out for Guillermo Del Toro's Dark Universe. That really would've been something.