Four directing projects that should fulfill a lot of that deal have just been announced, including remakes of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Slaughterhouse-Five. If you're sensing a pattern (or at least a genre), Universal has kind of banked on the creepy fantasy-horror movies that are the director's bread and butter. [And Slaughterhouse- Five just has a creepy name. - Zach] The studio is obviously pretty jazzed to be working with del Toro, even if they have to wait five years. Says production president Donna Langley, "It feels like a great fit for where (we expect) Guillermo will have evolved as a filmmaker five years from now." In a world where studio execs are in a constant game of musical chairs and, generally, only the maintenance workers stick around long enough to get their 20-years-with-the-studio gold watch, it'll most likely be someone else's problem if del Toro decides around 2013 that he'd rather work with rainbows and puppies. The first of the previously aforementioned four projects likely to find out: Drood, based on a novel by Dan Simmons that explores the idea that survival from a catastrophic train crash changed author Charles Dickens, plunging him into the depths of London depravity and possibly turning him to murder before he wrote his final novel, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood."

And if all that wasn't enough? Del Toro also has a slate of films he's set to produce, including an adaptation of the novel Hater, and gothic romance spec Crimson Peak. He even mentions a third Hellboy movie, and maybe even a TV series! And of course, who could forget about Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, another in the apparent long line of Guillermo del Toro pics my scaredy-cat ass won't be watching. Not that I don't respect his work. For Guillermo's next birthday, I might just send him a case of Jolt cola and a really big day planner.