While Guillermo Del Toro is still no stranger to facing hurdles in getting his films made — his participation in “The Hobbit” was stalled out by the endless financial woes of MGM and more recently, his R-rated take of “At The Mountains Of Madness” was killed by a nervous Universal — those are probably cakewalks between dealing with Bob Weinstein on his sophomore feature film “Mimic.”
Originally developed as a 30-minute short that would be part of a sci-fi/horror/comedy omnibus, “Mimic” became a full blown feature — starring Mira Sorvino, Josh Brolin and Jeremy Northam — about genetically modified insects, created to kill cockroaches carrying a deadly disease, that go totally out of control and evolve into monsters that mimic human form. The film contained many of the early flourishes that Del Toro would develop in full in his later — and better — films, but his experience on the shoot was not a fun one. He reportedly clashed with Weinstein repeatedly, who wanted changes to the story that weren’t in the script and at least one scene was directed by Ole Bornedal, a producer on the film. Well, a version as close to what Del Toro would have wanted is on the way with a Director’s Cut set to hit shelves this fall.
Boasting seven minutes of extra footage, mostly made up of character moments, this new BluRay release will build on previous DVD incarnations with a director’s commentary from Del Toro, deleted scenes, an introduction by Del Toro and a handful of featurettes making it the definitive edition to own. Del Toro is a great conversationalist and we hope the commentary really goes into the difficulties he faced making the film and explains what the production was like. The BluRay will street on September 27th just in time for whatever your Halloween party plans are. [STYD]
