Guillermo del Toro Names His Two ‘Worst' Filmmaking Experiences

Guillermo del Toro's resume is one of the most impressive in Hollywood, but he had no trouble naming two movies from his storied career that were particularly difficult to make.

The director was recently in Cannes to debut a new 4K restoration of his 2006 classic Pan's Labyrinth, where he got candid about how tricky it was to get the movie made, from start to finish.

He also made it pretty clear that Pan's Labyrinth wasn't the only pain point on his IMDB page, revealing the movie he says was a truly "horrible experience" to make.

Pan's Labyrinth Pain

Speaking about Pan's Labyrinth at a 20th anniversary celebration during the Cannes Film Festival, del Toro reflected on its difficult path to success.

"Twenty years ago, making this movie was like going against everything at all times," he said, according to Variety. "It was the second worst filmmaking experience of my life - the first one being Mimic with the Weinsteins. That was horrible."

As for why Pan's Labyrinth wasn't the breeziest of shoots, he said production was troubled from the start.

"It was very difficult in pre-production. No one wanted to finance it," he said. "In production, we had everything that could go wrong, go wrong. And then, in post-production it was equally difficult."

The hard work would be worth it, however, when the film premiered at Cannes in 2006. It earned a record-making 22-minute standing ovation at the time.

The movie-about a young girl who imagines herself in an often-creepy fantasy world amid the real-life horrors of the Spanish Civil War and a cruel stepfather- was a critical and box office hit.

It was also nominated for six Academy Awards-including Best Original Screenplay for del Toro and Best Foreign Language Film-and won Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Makeup.

His Other ‘Horrible' Experience

As Del Toro mentioned, while Pan's Labyrinth was a trying experience, it was his work on Mimic that was the worst of his career.

Starring Mira Sorvino and Josh Brolin, the 1997 sci-fi film was about genetically-modified bug hunting humans in the New York City sewers. It was both a critical and box office flop, making only $22.5 million against a $30 million budget.

Mimic was del Toro's first English-language film, following 1992's Cronos.

In 2024, during a Q&A session at the BFI London Film Festival, he spoke about his issues with the production.

"I really hated the experience," del Toro said, per IndieWire. "My first American experience was almost my last because it was with the Weinsteins and Miramax. I have got to tell you, two horrible things happened in the late nineties: my father was kidnapped, and I worked with the Weinsteins. I know which one was worse… the kidnapping made more sense, I knew what they wanted."

"I lost casting battles, I lost story battles but the one thing ‘Mimic' is visually 100% exactly what I wanted," he added at the time. "The movie is visually gorgeous and it has a couple of sequences I'm very proud of."

He later released a director's cut of the film in 2011.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 18, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 11:58 AM.