Guillermo del Toro to direct Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro is a visionary and a very nice man. And he’s also a very, very, very busy director.

While most big-name helmers are pondering their next move, the man behind Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy II has such a loaded development slate that he’s likely to be completely booked until 2017, according to Variety . Can you say what you’ll be doing in 2017? We can’t.

So what’s filling his schedule? Obviously the next five years are spoken for, working on The Hobbit and its unnamed second film. While they progress, the multi-tasking director will work with other writers to get future projects outlined, including Drood, adapted from the Dan Simmons which is still waiting to be published.

It sees Charles Dickens surviving an apocalyptic train crash that changes him forever, sending him into the depths of London’s dark side before penning The Mystery Of Edwin Drood.

Drood is currently the hot pick to follow The Hobbit, but there are plenty of other projects on the far horizon, including Hater, his long-gestating adaption of At The Mountains Of Madness and his other new likely producing and directing jobs, including Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde.

He’s projected to sleep some time in 2018, though he might give that up to work on an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s legendary sci-fi novel Slaughterhouse Five.