One of the most easy-to-admire filmmakers out there has GOT to be Guillermo del Toro, and it's not just because he makes darn good horror and action movies. (Check out the guy's commentaries or DVD interviews to get a taste of how smart, passionate, and wonderfully geeky this guy is!) Anyway, two fine websites have recently posted interviews with the man, one of the main topics is (of course) "Hellboy 2."

From Latino Review: "Can you talk about the transition with 'Hellboy,' the sequel finally getting done? I saw something online about the plot.
Del Toro: The plot that was described in that article was off by very little, but it's off enough that I think the screenplay and the plot itself are slightly different than described especially in terms of the interaction of Johan with the BPRD, but it's accurate in as much as that it's sort of the magical world declaring war on the human world.

Latino Review: How did that transition come about, moving to Universal?
Del Toro: Frankly, that came out of left field for me. I was on track to try and do 'Mountains of Madness.' We were having difficulty adjusting the scope of the movie because it's a very broad world that [H.P.] Lovecraft describes. It's a very big palette. We were having problems sort of syncing with a budget that would make it work for the studio and as we were doing that, in the middle of that process and the process of developing other things like 'Carnival Row' and so forth, all of a sudden and completely out of left field – if you saw my answers at Comic Con, I had no idea. It came out of left field, and Universal was responding to the screenplay..."

The CHUD boys have also posted a rather excellent interview with the director of "Cronos," "Mimic," "Blade 2," "The Devil's Backbone," "Hellboy," and the impending "Pan's Labyrinth," so go check it out!