Guillermo del Toro now has his production diary booked with films to direct through to 2017, including remakes of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Slaughterhouse-Five and many other projects.

Universal Pictures are making a long-term commitment with Del Toro by setting up four directorial projects. As well as the above mentioned remakes, Universal executives told Variety that Drood - based on a novel of the life of Charles Dickens - will most likely be the Del Toro’s first post-Hobbit movie.

The creative mind behind Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone is currently well underway with New Line and MGM's The Hobbit and its sequel, to which he has committed the next five years. He has begun writing the films with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, collaborating via video conferencing and trips to New Zealand every month.

Universal and Del Toro also have their sights set on an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, a third Hellboy installment and several projects which he will produce - including an adaptation of apocalyptic novel Hater and a gothic romance story called Crimson Peak (written by his Mimic collaborator Matthew Robins).

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