Is the goodwill that PAN'S LABYRINTH afforded Guillermo Del Toro starting to wane? After earning Oscar gold and creating a Golden Army for HELLBOY II, Del Toro was suddenly one of the most sought after directors on the planet, with a slate of film projects destined to keep him working for the better part of this decade. Then, for whatever reason, Del Toro exited THE HOBBIT - a project that seemed tailor-made for the director - only to wind up making some truly bizarre announcements at Comic Con over the weekend.

Hit the jump for the full slate of announcements.

First, news hit that he and Disney were teaming up for an update of the classic Disney ride Haunted Mansion. Huh? Del Toro will co-write and produce the film, and there is the fairly unlikely possibility that he may even step in to direct. Out of all the projects Del Toro has lined up, why choose this one? For the paycheck? In reality, Del Toro actually has quite an affinity for the property, and even has a room in his house inspired by the Haunted Mansion attraction. The film will also stick to the original premise of having 999 ghosts in 999 separate rooms, Del Toro tells HeatVision.

Del Toro also announced that he is continuing to develop a stop-motion version of Pinocchio, a project long thought dead. Nick Cave is said to be scoring the retelling of the classic tale, if the reporters at Comic Con did in fact decipher that bit of information correctly in between curses while speaking with Del Toro.

In addition to all of this, Del Toro mentioned that he hopes to get a new horror anthology series off the ground that will be made for TV, and should be announced officially in the next couple of months. As far as Del Toro returning to the director's chair, he looks to be diving back into the horror genre, and hopes to start shooting in May of 2011. No other details were revealed.

The main reason Del Toro was at Comic Con, however, was to show new footage of the Miramax film DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK. Del Toro co-wrote and produced the film, and the footage shown generated a great deal of positive buzz when it debuted Friday.

Del Toro has become somewhat of a Geek icon in recent years, but his English films still leave something to be desired. If he shoots in his native language, it's a masterpiece. But even the HELLBOY films are somewhat forgettable, despite having incredible visual flare. The man has an incredible imagination, but he needs to settle down and focus on one thing at a time! Unless he can find some way to clone himself...

Source /Film