The Disastrous 1997 Horror Movie That Led To Guillermo Del Toro's Hellboy

Film fans cherish Guillermo del Toro for his powerful storytelling ability and sublime visual language, especially when it comes to monsters. Despite his enviable filmography — which includes sensational features such as "Pan's Labyrinth," "The Shape of Water" and "Frankenstein" — del Toro doesn't look back on one of his earlier movies too fondly: 1997's horror "Mimic."

Starring Mira Sorvino, Josh Brolin, Jeremy Northam, and Charles S. Dutton, "Mimic" centers around the creation of a new insect made to exterminate an infestation of pathogenic cockroaches; however, this bug evolves into something much deadlier. Redditors voted it one of the best killer insect horror movies, and it's a frightening concept, but del Toro hasn't shied away from discussing something likely far scarier for him: dealing with the Weinstein brothers and Miramax Films. "I have got to tell you, two horrible things happened in the late nineties, my father was kidnapped and I worked with the Weinsteins," del Toro said at the 2017 BFI London Film Festival (via IndieWire). "I know which one was worse... the kidnapping made more sense, I knew what they wanted."

The only saving grace is that during the tumultuous production, del Toro discovered the "Hellboy" comic book for the first time; the filmmaker would write and direct the 2004 live-action adaptation of Big Red. "The best thing that happened for me on the entire shoot of 'Mimic' was that I was reading 'Hellboy,'" del Toro revealed in a "Hellboy" behind-the-scenes segment. "I admired what Mike [Mignola, 'Hellboy' creator] had done so enormously."

Even though Miramax clearly didn't release the version of "Mimic" that Guillermo del Toro wanted, and he subsequently disowned the theatrical cut, some consider it to be an underrated '90s horror movie gem. In 2011, the audience received the opportunity to see the filmmaker's actual vision — sort of. A director's cut of "Mimic" was released, but as del Toro explained to Den of Geek, it was never going to be his initial concept.

"I always said I needed [to return to 'Mimic'], like making amends with myself," he laughed. "Although the movie I wanted to make was never done, I knew there was a better cut of the movie laying somewhere in boxes in Miramax's warehouse. So we went looking for all the footage, which was a big quest, and reinstated a bunch of material which is 10 or 12 minutes or more." For del Toro, the director's cut removed considerable second unit footage and brought back the moments that expanded on characters and theme.

At the end of the day, it's a win-win here. The filmmaker managed to show his better cut of "Mimic" to the world years later. Also, if it weren't for the negative experience of "Mimic," del Toro may not have found the escapism of "Hellboy," which led to him creating a great superhero movie that isn't part of Marvel or DC. Now, if only someone would let him complete the "Hellboy" trilogy with Ron Perlman ...