Couldn’t say I saw this coming. THR reports that Guillermo del Toro is returning to A KILLING ON CARNIVAL ROW. The long-in-the-works fantasy project, however, will no longer be a feature film. Instead, Legendary and Amazon Studios are developing it as a television series to be called “Carnival Row”. Del Toro will co-write a pilot version of the feature script with Travis Beacham (PACIFIC RIM) and Rene Echevarria. And per usual, he will direct the pilot, most likely this spring, before he begins work on his next feature film. The show sounds like it's going to be filled with the kind of creatures and monsters that only del Toro's beautifully twisted mind could conjure up. Is Amazon the right home for it, though? I hope so.
Here’s what we know about it:
The story is set in a noir, Victorian-tinged city where humans, fairies and other creatures co-exist. The original script told of a detective investigating a serial killer who is preying on mystical creatures, only to find that he has become the prime suspect in the murders.
"We tried to do it for so long as a film that the rights reverted back to Travis as a basic story,” del Toro told THR. "And I’ve always talked about it to anyone that would listen.” After The Strain, Legendary's Thomas Tull came to del Toro and said whether he would be willing to explore it as a series. Del Toro jumped at the chance. “We always had too many ideas to fit into the feature,” he said. “We can now really focus on the world and the politics of what it is to be a magical being in Victorian steampunk atmosphere where you are seen as a lesser being." We'll probably be hearing plenty more from this one in the coming months, so keep an eye here!