As if Hellboy and Hobbits weren't enough to keep him off the streets, Guillermo del Toro has literally scared up some more work.
The fantastical filmmaker has been tapped by Universal to helm remakes of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, per Variety, along with a big-screen adaptation of Charles Dickens' final novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood simply titled Drood, and a new take on Kurt Vonnegut's cult novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
The Oscar-nominated helmer, who is currently prepping the Hobbit films with Peter Jackson, will most likely begin with Drood, a murder mystery that Dickens never completed.
Universal has also committed to another del Toro dream project, a big-screen version of horrormeister H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. Del Toro will also produce two films for the studio, an adaptation of David Moody's apocalyptic tome Hater and Crimson Peak, a gothic romance del Toro cowrote with his Mimic collaborator Matthew Robbins.
The Oscar nominee also hopes to do one more installment in his Hellboy series, but given his jam-packed slate, fans shouldn't expect it anytime soon, since he's now booked up at least through 2017!
Also on the Hollywood radar:
- Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) is in talks with Warner Bros. to pilot an update of Edgar Rice Burrough's classic Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, according to the Hollywood Reporter—a project del Toro was attached to adapt two years ago. Sommers just completed next summer's would-be blockbuster, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra.
- Ashley Judd has come aboard 20th Century Fox's comedy Tooth Fairy, opposite Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. She'll play a single mother with two kids who hooks up with a minor league hockey player (Johnson) nicknamed the Tooth Fairy. Lensing starts in Vancouver in October.
- Renée Zellweger and Forest Whitaker are set to topline My Own Love Song, an indie drama about a wheelchair-bound former singer and her friend who take a roadtrip to Memphis after facing various tragedies in their lives. Shooting starts next month in Kansas City and New Orleans.
- Olympic gold medal gymnast Shawn Johnson will do a guest shot on an upcoming episode of ABC Family's Secret Life of the American Teenager, Zap2It.com reports. She'll tape her acting debut sometime this week.
- TNT is looking to spin off its hit police drama The Closer, starring Golden Glober winner Kyra Sedgwick. No word whether the new series will pick up with an existing character or focus on a new one.
- Survivor and Apprentice guru Mark Burnett is back in the business world, joining forces with ABC to create a new reality competition series called The Shark Tank. The pilot, based on the Japanese series Dragon's Den, will find wannabe entrepreneurs pitching business moguls with the goal of landing investment capital.
- With The L Word concluding its sixth season run this January, Showtime is now eyeing a spinoff headlining Leisha Hailey, who plays Alice on the series.
- Relativity Media, looking to jump-start its movie version of the kid-friendly sci-fi 'toon Voltron: Defender of the Universe, is in talks with director Max Makowski. The helmer's most recent credits include the indie Asian gangster flick One Last Dance and, um, episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.