Los Angeles, May 18 (IANS) Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro went through a gruelling schedule during the filming of ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’. Nearly 20 years after the film premiered to acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival, the filmmaker reflected on just how difficult the Oscar-winning fantasy film was to make, and what his worst filmmaking experience was.

The 61-year-old filmmaker returned to Cannes this year to present a new 4K restoration of the film, which originally debuted in competition at the 2006 festival and received a record-setting 22-minute standing ovation ,reports ‘People’ magazine.

But despite the movie’s enduring legacy and critical success, he revealed at this year’s festival that making the film was an intensely difficult experience behind the scenes.

He said, quoted by ‘Varitety’, “Twenty years ago, making this movie was like going against everything at all times”.

He further mentioned, “It was the second worst filmmaking experience of my life, the first one being Mimic with the Weinsteins. That was horrible”.

As per ‘People’, released in 1997, ‘Mimic’ was his English-language studio debut, a sci-fi horror movie produced by disgraced former Hollywood moguls Bob and Harvey Weinstein. It starred Mira Sorvino and Josh Brolin, the film followed genetically engineered insects that evolve into deadly human-sized creatures living underground in New York City.

The filmmaker has spoken for years about his negative experience making the movie, frequently citing clashes with the Weinsteins over creative control and studio interference.

Speaking at a film festival in 2017, he said, “I really hated the experience. My first American experience was almost my last because it was with the Weinsteins and Miramax”.

“I have got to tell you, two horrible things happened in the late ’90s, my father was kidnapped and I worked with the Weinsteins. I know which one was worse… the kidnapping made more sense, I knew what they wanted”, he added.

–IANS

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