Rumor: Guillermo del Toro Might Be Developing a Secret ‘WALL-E’ Meets ‘Splash’ Project

Guillermo del Toro has a lot of potential projects on his plate, including the long-gestating Haunted Mansion movie for Disney (which may star Ryan Gosling) and Pacific Rim 2. In addition to those more concrete projects, the filmmaker always seems to have a few ideas percolating, most of which never come to fruition. A new rumor suggests that del Toro has yet another movie in development, and what makes this one strange is that we’ve never heard him talk about it before.

Del Toro is pretty open about his various projects and ideas, so we should take this rumor with a hefty grain of salt, but the Tracking Board is reporting that the filmmaker is developing a mystery project with Fox Searchlight described as “WALL-E meets Splash” — whatever that means. The report claims that del Toro is directing and producing the project alongside the studio, with DanTram Nguyen and David Greenbaum overseeing.

There are no further plot details, so that curious description leaves a lot to the imagination — maybe a beautiful robot saves a kid’s life and he grows up to fall in love with the robot? Who knows. The Tracking Board report speculates that the project is a movie for kids based on the ratings of the other two films. WALL-E is rated G and Splash is rated PG, but you could argue that both of these films have a much wider appeal, as do most of del Toro’s own films, ratings aside.

Del Toro has a lot on his plate as of now. His next film, Crimson Peak, hits theaters on October 16, and his next film is Pacific Rim 2. He’s also producing the TV series The Strain and Carnival Row, and there’s always The Haunted Mansion, which — if del Toro is to be believed — is closer than ever to finally happening.