Guillermo Del Toro

ABOUT six years ago, while wrapping up "Amores Perros," the movie that would stamp him as the new "It Boy" of global cinema, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu got an early-morning phone call from a man he'd never met in his life. Like Inarritu, the caller was a headstrong, iconoclastic young Mexican filmmaker, better known at the time for his prodigal potential than his actual achievements. "Your movie is a masterpiece, but it's too long," Guillermo del Toro said point-blank.

Fantasy and horror fans, prepare yourselves for the Decade of Del Toro. On the far side of the globe, in New Zealand, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is in his seventh month of labor on "The Hobbit," a $300-million epic that will be told over two films to be released in 2011 and 2012. But you can also find the Guadalajara, Mexico, native now on the shelf of your local bookstore with his debut novel, "The Strain," which is the opening installment of a vampire trilogy he has already fully mapped out.

WHEN Guillermo del Toro arrived in Hollywood in the '90s, the Mexican filmmaker was showered with scripts about "bullfighters and mariachis." He remembers being "puzzled" by Hollywood's behavior. As he put it, "Would you give David Cronenberg a screenplay about the Mountie Police in Canada?"

SCREENWRITERS Michael Arndt ("Little Miss Sunshine"), Guillermo del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth"), Peter Morgan ("The Queen") and Iris Yamashita ("Letters From Iwo Jima") were splayed across a lounge at the Writers Guild headquarters in Beverly Hills. They had just come from the official academy nominees luncheon and appeared relaxed and chatty, if a little bewildered by the attention.

Cinematography \o7Pan's Labyrinth \f7 Guillermo Navarro Like frequent collaborator Guillermo del Toro, a fellow Mexican, Guillermo Navarro has a flair for conjuring fantasy realms but imbuing them with a visceral sense of reality. In director Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth," Navarro had to make a young girl's imaginary world, peopled with strange creatures and voluptuous settings, mesh with the stark brutalities of Spain in the 1940s.

Three prominent Mexican directors and two lesser-known ones are quietly shopping themselves to Hollywood in an all-or-nothing, five-picture deal. The price tag: as much as $100 million. Merging their talents and newfound clout are Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who, in taking this initiative, are seeking the kind of creative control and ownership over their work that few filmmakers enjoy.

Three prominent Mexican directors who had been shopping themselves to Hollywood studios as a team are forming a partnership with Universal Pictures. Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will call their production label Cha Cha Cha. The deal will allow the trio the kind of creative control and ownership few filmmakers enjoy. Universal was viewed as the front-runner to make the deal, which was announced Friday during France's Cannes Film Festival.

THE heavyset man ran down the London street, panting, chasing the taxi. When it didn't stop, he hopped into another cab. "Follow that cab!" he yelled. Guillermo del Toro wasn't directing this movie. He was living it. And it was turning into a horror tale. The Mexican filmmaker keeps all of his ideas in leather notebooks. And Del Toro had just left four years of work in the back seat of a British cab. Unlike in the movies, though, Del Toro couldn't catch the taxi.

ACTOR Doug Jones never sought to specialize in playing creatures. When he came to L.A. in 1985 from his home in Indiana, he envisioned himself playing the goofy next-door-neighbor types. His career changed when he landed the crescent-moon Mac Tonight character in the popular McDonald's spots two decades ago. Ever since, the lanky Jones -- he's nearly 6-foot-4 but only 140 pounds -- has become one of the most sought-after actors to play creatures in movies, TV and commercials.

THE Mexican-born writer-director Guillermo del Toro is the most accomplished fantasist in contemporary cinema, a master creator of images, atmosphere and mood who uses his visionary's gifts to do what others cannot: make imaginary worlds seem more real than reality itself.