Hellboy II Director Has Harsh Words For 'Cowardly' Hollywood Studios

I always like to take a little nihilism with my morning coffee, especially on Fridays, when the inky abyss of the weekend sprawls before me with so much self-medicating potential, and when one has finally grown at least a little inured to the thwack of the cultural switch to the raw, riven backs of one's knees. And ultimately, when you've get a dose like today's -- a bleak, bleak diagnosis from filmmaking BFF's Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro -- its summoning in part by a hypocrite hardly seems to matter.

The old friends convened for an interview with The Wrap, one pegged to Iñárritu's admittedly haunting, brilliant awards-pony Biutiful before veering into some fairly well-trod F*** Hollywood territory. And then, prompted by a question about the changing nature of del Toro's "dealings with major studios over the years," the director of two generally unwatchable Hellboy movies (not to mention a Hobbit exile and eventual helmer of the Lovecraft adaptation At the Mountains of Madness for Universal) got out the flamethrower:

DEL TORO: I think so. The economic crisis hit when Alejandro was in Spain, and the business changed radically in the last two years. Radically. I think it's maimed beyond recognition. It's not the same industry. I told Alejandro, "While you were away, a holocaust happened. You're gonna come back to a wasteland." I consider the state we are in now a truly catastrophic panorama.

IÑÁRRITU: I will say that obviously there are great people out there who want to do great cinema. The thing is there are so many corporate impossibilities. But I would say that the major problem is not economic.

DEL TORO: It's cowardice.

IÑÁRRITU: I would say even worse than that. We are living, not only the United States but around the world, in a cultural genocide. People's state of mind is with the TV, Internet kind of immediate, reductive, fast entertainment. And some very interesting things come out of that, but unfortunately not so often. [...] A whole generation has been fed by the reductive and stupid and super banal. And that is affecting the perception of cinema all around the world.

DEL TORO: I actually think it's catastrophic. I think the studios are being conservative, and cowardly. That they only venture to the safest, most inane bets for the audience. Things that seem recycled from a recycle from a recycle.

IÑÁRRITU: It is almost not possible if you are not based on a bestseller, on a big comic book, or have a branding behind you. To bring an original idea is just the scariest thing that anybody can confront. Original ideas, and adult films, human films, those are the scariest things.

DEL TORO: Those are almost impossible to finance now, whereas in the '70s, all the great movies were for adults. It doesn't matter if it was Three Days of the Condor, or a commercial thriller, or Taxi Driver, or whatever it was. They were geared for adults.

Ahhhh. They're right, of course. But doth del Toro protest too much? I mean, at least when Iñárritu was making ham-fisted English-language studio garbage like 21 Grams and Babel, they were technically original stories. I really don't know if I'm ready to hear about our ongoing, devastating creative "holocaust" from the director of Blade II and executive producer of Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots and the remake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. I mean, he's also the maker of Pan's Labyrinth and Cronos, so there's that. But come on, G.! Either step up to your own implicit challenge or curb your damn dog; we can only navigate around so much crap.

· Iñárritu & del Toro: A Biutiful Friendship [The Wrap]