Posted in: Movies | Tagged: doug jones, guillermo del toro, the shape of water

Doug Jones Is A Fish Man In Another Guillermo Del Toro Movie

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is one of the greats working in the industry right now but he can't seem to land the blockbuster hit with audiences. He did comic book movies before they were the only thing people made (Hellboy), he tried his hand at giant monsters fighting giant robots (Pacific Rim), a dark and twisted fairy tale before that was the cool thing to do (Pan's Labyrinth), and Gothic Romance straight out of the bookshelf at the grocery store (Crimson Peak). Del Toro is a man that is always working something and after completing Crimson Peak, and while producing Pacific Rim 2, he is also working on a new movie called The Shape of Water.

"It is artfully and beautifully [made]—if this doesn't end up with Guillermo back at the Oscars, I will be surprised. I will be very surprised," said Jones.

There isn't much known about the movie yet aside from the fact that it takes place during the Cold War in 1963 and the cast includes Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer, and frequent collaborator Doug Jones. Jones recently sat down with Collider to talk about his new movie The Bye Bye Man. He was asked about the new del Toro movie, who he playing, and some of the plot details.

"It's a 1963 drama—it's not a sci-fi [film], it's not a genre film, but I am a creature in it. I'm a fish man that's kind of a one-off. I'm an enigma, nobody knows where I came from; I'm the last of my species so I'm like a natural anomaly. And I'm being studied and tested in a U.S. government facility in 1963, so the Russian Cold War is on, the race for space is on, so there's all that backdrop and that undercurrent. I'm being tested for how can they use me for advantages in military or space travel, or my technology—can we make this usable for humans? So they're trying to keep me a secret from the Russians."

It's not surprising that Jones is going to playing another creature in heavy prosthetics and makeup but the comparison to Abe Sapien from the Hellboy series is going to be impossible to ignore. There can't be that many people who can say 'I have played a fish creature more than once'.

He also talked about the love story that is a new detail in the film.

"Meanwhile, there's a love story that brews out of it, and that would be the cleaning lady played by Sally Hawkins. She comes and finds me, has sympathy on me, and then that's the story that you're really gonna follow with this whole backdrop."

There isn't a definitive release date but current rumors say that Fox Searchlight Pictures are looking at late 2017. Now that the new year has hit we can hope for more information soon. While del Toro doesn't always hit home runs with audiences his movies are always interesting and beautiful if nothing else.

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