Back in November, Guillermo Del Toro was one of many directors rumored to be connected to possibly directing the just announced Star Wars: Episode VII. Del Toro dismissed the rumors stating that he had not even been approached about the possibility by Lucasfilm.
That has changed, as Del Toro told The Playlist that he eventually did receive a call from Lucasfilm, but passed on the opportunity.
We got one phone call to my agent saying, ‘Is Guillermo interested?’ And basically I have so much stuff already of my own, and I’m pursuing stuff that I’m generating already.
It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that Del Toro passed, however. The director currently is wrapping up work on next summer’s Pacific Rim and has a number of other projects in various stages of development, anyone of which he could tackle next. To move right into Star Wars would mean to postpone any of these more personal projects for at least two to three years, depending on whether he was going to direct just Episode VII or all of the planned new trilogy. Given the amount of time that Del Toro invested in developing The Hobbit with Peter Jackson with an eye towards directing before ultimately leaving in frustration over delays relating to MGM’s financial crisis, I am not surprised that he doesn’t seem interested in working on a project where he might be beholden to someone else.
