Guillermo Del Toro Bashes Konami in Christmas Message
By Fergus O'Sullivan 27 December 2016
Famed Hollywood director Guillermo del Toro continues feud with Konami through unprintable Christmas message, Japanese industry giant responds with silence.
Christmas is a time of sharing, caring, and messages from public figures with well wishes for all the world. In the case of Guillermo del Toro, however, not quite everyone was included. The director of Pacific Rim wished everyone “happy holidays,” but added a special message for his erstwhile partners in the failed Silent Hill game. “F*** Konami,” he tweeted. At time of writing, Konami has not replied to the sentiment.
It’s not the first time the famed Mexican director has insulted the Japanese game giant. In fact, just three weeks ago he dropped an F-bomb on Twitter when his friend and colleague Hideo Kojima received an award at the Game Awards 2016. Then, as now, del Toro’s tweet was simply “F*** Konami.” The vendetta between the director and the studio began over a year ago, when the Silent Hill game del Toro was set to direct was cancelled and he lashed out publicly against the studio. Not charmed by being publicly lambasted, Konami then barred Kojima from the Game Awards 2015.
Del Toro’s relationship with Konami may be trashed by now, but his friendship with Kojima seems to be as strong as ever. The iconic game maker featured his friend in the trailer for his latest game, Death Stranding, which promises the usual hallmarks of Kojima’s style. Fans are gearing up for a winding plot, strange happenings, and some terrifying enemies. Del Toro’s exact role in the project has not been revealed, though it’s unlikely he’s directly involved with making it, as he’s sworn not to dip his toes in that pool again.
Not only did the Silent Hill project fall apart on del Toro, but developer THQ went bankrupt while he was working with them on a new horror game. Rather than trying again, the director last year admitted that he has given up on making video games. “I have proven to be the albatross of video games … I have decided, in order not to destroy anyone else’s life, I will never again get involved in video games. Otherwise, I’ll join someone and his house will explode, or something.”
Then again, why make video games when your movies and TV shows are doing so well? Del Toro rose to fame as the director of films like Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy, with writing credits for the epic Hobbit saga on top of that. His IMDB page is pretty much a compendium of every fantastical film out there and his newest venture, a Netflix original series called Trollhunters, has met with great critical and public acclaim.
Though a del Toro-directed video game would likely be very, very cool, his fans are seemingly going to have to be content with his screen productions.
