Even though Guillermo del Toro is finishing Pacific Rim and has to shoot a pilot for his vampire novel The Strain, he's already lined up his next project. It's not Heaven Sent (aka Justice League Dark), but the ghost story Crimson Peak. The film was originally written with Mimic co-writer Matthew Robbins and was set to be made for Universal in 2008. Del Toro is going to rewrite the screenplay with Lucinda Coxon and hopes to start production on Crimson Peak for Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures in early 2014.

Del Toro described Crimson Peak as "a very set-oriented, classical but at the same time modern take on the ghost story. It will allow me to play with the conventions of the genre I know and love, and at the same time subvert the old rules." He elaborated on the ghost story/haunted house genre:

To me that is Robert Wise's The Haunting, which was a big movie, beautifully directed, with the house built magnificently. And the other grand daddy is Jack Clayton's The Innocents. I've always tried to make big-sized horror movies like the ones I grew up watching. Films like The Omen, The Exorcist, and The Shining, the latter of which is another Mount Everest of the haunted house movie. I loved the way that Kubrick had such control over the big sets he used, and how much big production value there was. I think people are getting used to horror subjects done as found footage or B-value budgets. I wanted this to feel like a throwback.

Del Toro explains the shift from Universal to Legendary Pictures after the cut. I've also included the trailers for The Haunting (an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House) and The Innocents (an adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw). If you're a fan of ghost/haunted house stories and haven't seen those two movies yet, you definitely need to.

[Via First Showing]